In Oman, a national blockchain based project has been launched to accelerate digital innovation efforts in the Sultanate.
The project is the result of a collaboration between Omantel, a local state-owned telephone company, Blockchain Solutions and Services (BSS) and the Oman government agency for e-government, Information Technology Authority (ITA) and consists of the development of the National HyperLedger Fabric Platforms.
The platform chosen is the HyperLedger Fabric, a blockchain permissioned platform, developed by IBM together with the Linux Foundation, as it is already used by other governments and companies globally.
Oman: the path towards a national blockchain
Oman has embarked on this path with two strategic focuses: innovation and national growth. Two platforms have therefore been created, the first of which, the Blockchain Factory, is a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS).
Developed by BSS together with Swisscom Blockchain AG, its aim is to enable start-ups, businesses, entrepreneurs, industry players, ministries, universities and even SMEs to explore blockchain use cases in an agile environment.
Whereas the second platform integrates ready-to-use blockchain applications and solutions into “The National Private Permissioned Platform”, a secure environment consisting of three nodes that distribute consensus between ITA, BSS and Omantel.
The Government of Oman, under the aegis of the ITA, has also developed a SaaS incubation platform for the deployment of innovative use cases within ministries and in the private sector, accompanied by the launch of a national sandbox environment jointly developed by BSS and ITA in order to establish the necessary regulatory support for these technologies.
The sandbox will provide legislators with information on what can be applied and what needs to be modified to incorporate innovative concepts and startups into the Oman ecosystem in a safe and secure manner.
The Executive Chairman of the General State Reserve Fund and President of BSS, Abdulsalam Mohammed Al-Murshidi said:
“The deployment of the blockchain platform in Oman is one of the most important initiatives being undertaken today. With the digitization efforts underway in Oman and regionally, the blockchain platform will empower developers, entrepreneurs, and businesses to innovate using blockchain in a flexible and safe environment, where they can then be migrated into real life production ready solutions on the National Private permissioned Platform”.
BSS CEO Khalid MW Tahhan added:
“We are keen to develop blockchain applications that serve the Sultanate as well as the global economy at large. With this in mind we also want to ensure that we provide a safe, secure, and robust environment for these applications and solutions to flourish. We hope that both the private sector players and innovators will work in tandem with government to build an innovation driven ecosystem. We have already initiated development of use cases for government utilizing these platforms, which we will announce in due course, and look forward to the innovative use cases to be developed by society utilizing the Development Factory deployed”.
