Christoph Steck @christophsteck Public Policy Director, Telefónica.
- Alastria is the first national multi-sectoral network in the world to use Blockchain, which aims at enabling and accelerating the digital transformation of the different industrial and business sectors.
Telefónica, together with 70 of Spain’s largest companies and institutions, in sectors such as banking, energy and telecommunications, have set up Alastria, the world’s first blockchain-based regulated national network. The consortium has come into being in order to accelerate the creation of digital ecosystems, providing a common collaborative platform: the Alastria network.
This consortium will develop the technology for shared accounting registers, destined to become the new data exchange ecosystem and to enable and accelerate the digital transformation of different industrial and business sectors in the coming years, owing to its flexibility, veracity, security and efficiency.
Telefónica is participating as a founding member because it represents an excellent opportunity to generate knowledge of this technology in the Spanish industry, with everyone exploring how much can be achieved by the exploitation of its greatest virtue, namely permitting different companies, from any sector and of any size, to inter-operate and collaborate. In addition, there is no need for direct trust relationships to be established among them, as this is an element Alastria itself provides.
This partnership should encourage all the companies to implement innovative and transversal services, which will ultimately make our customers’ lives easier and more complete, giving back to citizens the time and effort currently demanded of them.
The first service Alastria will provide is digital identity. This issue is of the utmost importance for Telefónica, where we undertake, as does Alastria, to provide our customers’ control of their personal data by means of initiatives such as Aura, constituted within the framework of our fourth-platform project, which, as a result of the application of cognitive abilities, will form the basis of a new model for our relationship with our customers.
Alastria is an open platform which other companies, startups, SMEs, large corporations, universities and other players from all the sectors in Spain can join.
Similarly, Telefónica is synonymous with innovation, which means that we always keep track of any emerging new technologies which can improve our company and, therefore, the quality of the services we offer our customers. When this happens, we attempt to participate in their development and distribution, as occurs with this application of blockchain technology in Alastria.
The founders of Alastria include professionals such as notaries and lawyers, who will ensure the security and veracity of the information by means of the identification of the natural and legal persons. Not surprisingly, the digital ID will be the chief focus of Alastria in its initial stages, by means of the “ID Alastria” Digital Identity standard, which will allow citizens to have control over their personal information in a transparent manner, in accordance with the guidelines of the European Union.
Would you like to know more about Blockchain? Read this interview with Christoph Steck and Eusebio Felguera.
The Alastria network will constitute a shared platform upon which the different participants, particularly the large companies, will be able to create digital representations of the assets they work with in their regular economic activity. This is what is technologically known as “tokenization”. With these “tokens” it is possible to interact and develop new digital products and services of an innovative nature, in addition to improving the effectiveness of the current processes in a secure and efficient manner. The network will thus enable the acceleration of the companies’ digital transformation.
