The results of the MiSE blockchain study for the use of the Made in Italy

The pilot project for the application of blockchain technology to the Made in Italy will be presented next Thursday.

This is a project of the Ministry for Economic Development (MiSE) in collaboration with IBM, started in March and focused on a feasibility study with the aim of verifying the strengths and critical points of the application of the blockchain to sectors that are crucial for the Italian textile industry. 

The presentation of the results of the feasibility study will take place on November 14th, at 11:00 AM (CEST), at the Salone degli Arazzi of the Ministry of Economic Development, with particular reference to the textile sector for the valorisation and protection of Made in Italy products. 

The presentation event will be attended by some textile companies involved in the testing, together with trade associations. 

The event will also be attended by Minister Stefano Patuanelli and the CEO of IBM Italy, Enrico Cereda. 

The study has attempted to verify what could be the conditions for the application of a solution based on the use of distributed ledgers to certify the production cycle of textile products. 

This would be only the first possible application of these technologies, because the MiSE would like to extend their use to other strategic sectors for the country, and also present it in the context of the activities of the European Blockchain Partnership.

At present, no indiscretions about the results of the study have been leaked, which will, therefore, be revealed only during the presentation on Thursday. 

It does not appear that the members of the group of experts selected by the same ministry to elaborate on the country’s strategy towards the development of technologies based on blockchain and distributed ledger have been involved either. 

Instead, in addition to IBM, several companies and associations of the textile industry were involved in order to facilitate the exchange of knowledge between the various actors and to analyse the current production processes in order to identify possible concrete solutions based on blockchain. 

A few days ago the new Minister for Economic Development Stefano Patuanelli said: 

“We are pioneers in Europe with the introduction of new technologies such as Blockchain for which, alongside Artificial Intelligence, high-level expert groups have been created to prepare a document containing Proposals for an Italian Strategy: the one on Artificial Intelligence has already been presented and the same will soon be done for Blockchain. 

Through the use of blockchain we are developing a specific project to promote the Made in Italy. The pilot project “Blockchain for traceability in textiles” is possible thanks to the involvement of small and medium enterprises in the sector and to the technology partner IBM, and will result in the release of a “proof of concept” document available to all companies that want to approach this area. We will soon be applying the same model to agrifood as well”.