Don calls for engagement of blockchain technology

A University don, Dr Abiodun Okedeyi of the Department of Physics, Lagos State University of Education, Oto Ijanikin has called for the engagement of blockchain technology for the socio-economic development of the country.

Dr Okedeyi made the call in an interview on Thursday in Lagos.

He said that blockchain technology had a lot of positive impact if properly harnessed for the wide range of economic and social benefits for youths and the improvement of knowledge.

Okedeyi said Blockchain technology as a decentralised digital ledger could record items and transactions from series of computers such that no record could be altered without altering the main blocks thereby forming a long chain.

According to him, there are public, private, hybrid, or consortium Blockchain technologies that are capable of supporting various applications related to multiple industries like finance, supply chain, manufacturing, medicine, among others.

"It provides a good deal of accountability and demonstrates that the data is actual and unchanged, making it very difficult to be hacked.

"Blockchain technology develops and competes with traditional companies for modern and creative business models,'' he said.

Okedeyi said that the healthcare sector needed the technology for efficiency in researches because it was affordable.

"In healthcare, the blockchain technology helps healthcare researchers uncover genetic code by facilitating the secure transfer of patient medical records, managing the drug supply chain and facilitating the safe transfer of patients medical record.

"It helps marketer in health and pharmaceuticals industries to get rid of counterfeit medications by enabling them to trace all medicines, expiring date and also helps discover the cause of falsification.

"Blockchain technology guarantees the confidentiality of patient records, develop patient's medical history and store it in such a way that it cannot be modified.

"It is a decentralised network that is used with all commodity hardware in the hospital and an excellent technology for protecting confidential data within the system against cyber attack,'' he said.

Okedeyi added that blockchain was a technology that analyse large volume of information about a particular group of individuals and used for the advancement of precision in medicine for healthcare in real-time with the help of the Internet.