Decoding block chain for municipalities

BY 2010 the City of Bulawayo had registered their domain name citybyo.co.zw but did not have a functional website or an email service associated with their domain.

Knowing the City Fathers to be a pro-active lot I approached them and helped them host their website and realise an e-mail service based on their domain name. This was payback for the time I used to spend at Mzilikazi Memorial Library from 1977 right up to 1989. So what? Read on.

The City of Bulawayo has an opportunity to not only become the first municipality to embrace block chain technologies in everything they do but can also become the first institution to have its own crypto-currency backed by their own land and properties. Yes, you read that right.

They do not need to apply to anyone to use block chain technology or to launch their own crypto-currency "BitPhambili". In this article I will dwell more on the adoption of block chain technology by municipalities in general and then hopefully dwell on use of crypto-currencies in the next one.

Block chain technology has the potential to bring security, efficiency, and speed to a wide range of services and processes. But before those transformative effects can be achieved in local government, policymakers should learn the basics of this new architecture, since frankly, even some straight forward explanations can be a little daunting.

This primer is designed specifically to offer senior executives a simplified version of what this block chain is all about. Easier said than done. But knowing that the City of Bulawayo fellas are not impervious to new technologies and new ways of thinking I hope they will receive this in the same way they received web based technologies some 10 years ago.

Block chain is a Distributed Ledger Technology that came to prominence through its application within the digital currency Bitcoin.

The benefits of the underlying distributed ledger, commonly referred to as the block chain, however has gained increasing attention over the past 18 months as its potential outside of the financial services industry has begun to be appreciated.

Where the Internet created a platform for the exchange of information, the block chain creates a platform for the exchange of value.

A distributed ledger is essentially an asset database that is shared across a network of people or even organisations where every participant has a copy of the ledger. Every participant in the network records all transactions.

In this way, the distributed ledger acts to authenticate the transactions, provide an immutable record that they have occurred and ensure traceability.

Business licences, property titles, vehicle registrations and other records could all be shifted to block chains. Additionally, block chain brings greater transparency into city services.

Since the technology uses a distributed ledger, city councils and other Government leaders would be able to see whenever a contractor or service provider finishes a task. Additionally, citizens would be able to register complaints or requests in an open format and track the response.

Of particular interest to local government would be the management of municipal owned land and property. The local authority can now block chain the property information securely and avail it online say to those in diaspora who would either want to rent to buy property. This is already being done in Kenya and Ghana. The city has a massive network of water, sewer, road and public lighting.

This technology could be used to lease out excess capacity of the city infrastructure. Given that the city has a sound GIS system in place already, tweaking this into block chain would be the next logical step.

The city operates a number of clinics. Block chain can unlock the potential to raise funds for these clinics using crowd funding techniques.

These are based on block chain and as such are immutable. But like with most technologies the first step would be to come up with a prototype to show the "proof of concept". This could be in the form of a new suburb that the city seeks to develop.

The city can help by sponsoring a hackathon in Bulawayo. A hackathon is essentially an accelerated event where you bring computer and software programmers together with a very specific agenda for them to come up with a usable application.

This event which is usually two days is the basis of the pilot project that can be adopted by the city.

Coders can be asked to develop a solution to deal with (1) property registration and tax collections (2) management of infrastructure resources (3) effective library service (4) housing department records clean up. These are just a few examples but the city must start somewhere.

I have seen technologies evolve over the last 15 years from email; instant messaging, web, VoIP, social media and so ignore block chain at your own risk.

Masiye Phambili.

Robert Ndlovu- 077 600 2605