Students in the University of Malta’s Master of Blockchain and Distribution Ledger Technologies have built a decentralized application (Dapp) that is used to vote in upcoming student representative elections, according to the press release of March 28.
Dapp is built on the decentralized digital identity platform provided by Vodafone to students. The election was the first live project to be implemented using Vodafone digital identification platform.
Joshua Ellul, the university’s director, said we were excited to be the first use case for the Vodafone [digital identity] platform of Malta’s distributed ledger technology center.
Decentralized voting application
Although the application was built to allow voters to control their data automatically instead of giving up personal data to a centralized entity. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted some advantages of platforms. Ellul declares:
Especially at this moment, given the current situation, it is important to have a remote voting mechanism, which allows reliability and transparency thanks to Blockchain-based solutions.
Ellul said that the biggest challenge in developing the platform is to rely on the network reliably, with users adding that Cameron’s digital identity platforms like Vodafone provide a solution.
Voting is private but transparent, meaning the results of an election can be verified publicly.
The University of Malta introduced its blockchain master course in October 2019.
Malta’s government promotes a “blockchain island”
Malta has long been a crypto-friendly jurisdiction. Whether it will remain unclear when the current Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, resigned after facing corruption and widespread ties to a journalist’s political assassination.
While new government-issued statements indicate that the leading cryptocurrency exchange (Binance) is licensed in the country shortly after taking office, the new government has expressed its position on the blockchain. They added that they will seek to integrate blockchain with other emerging industries under the protection for Digital, Financial and Creative services.
Ref: Cointelegraph
