Blockchain Fundamentals

What is "blockchain"? A logical and intuitive description for everyone, explained in simple terms but packed full of useful information.

Availability and Pricing

The price for the whole course is $199, including recordings of all sessions and course materials.

Places are limited to 10 to ensure maximum engagement.

Schedule: once you have booked, you can register for sessions here.

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What you'll learn

• A clear, concise understanding of exactly what "blockchain" is.

• A logical and intuitive technical definition of a blockchain network and its components.

• A comprehensive set of terms frequently used in reference to blockchain that are clearly explained.

• A basic understanding of distributed ledgers, decentralisation, consensus, hashing, and cryptography.

Requirements

• None. All you need is a good understanding of English. And an interesting in learning about the future operating system of the world, of course!

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Description

This course is designed to be an introduction to blockchain for everyone from the ordinary person in the street who perhaps only heard the term and nothing else, right up to those already using or even working with the technology but looking for a single resource to help them articulate exactly what it is.

Although it covers all the major technical aspects of blockchain, it is not a deep exploration and only superficially addresses its technological aspects. As such, it should appeal to people of all levels of business and technological experience who recognise the importance of having at least some level of knowledge of this important subject.

The tutor for this course is a professional blockchain architect who has designed and built hundreds of solutions using the technology over the last seven years. As a novel technology, every client engagement has required some degree of education on the subject which is all condensed into this concise course.

There will be future courses on Web 3.0, Distributed Autonomous Organisations and enterprise blockchain for those interested in its practical applications, and a full course devoted to those who aspire to become professional blockchain architects  with a much deeper investigation into the technological aspects and use cases.

Who this course is for:

• Whether you're a junior school student, a corporate executive or a software engineer, you will understand every concept explained in this short course and benefit from it.

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Instructor

Joel Smalley

Previously, I had twenty years in the finance industry, working with large, complex data sets and analytics. I have solutions experience across all major industries, including healthcare, logistics, automotive, finance, insurance and consumer retail.

And recently, I have three years experience in writing and presenting data analyses on socioeconomics on a near daily basis.

You will quickly appreciate that my teaching style is logical, intuitive and concise. I like to provide step-by-step progress towards a realisation of new learning so that you understand what I teach rather than just temporarily retain some new facts, but remaining efficiently focused on the subject at hand.

Although I am not a teacher by training, it is my vocation. And having spent the last few years presenting this novel technology to many new professional audiences, I am always teaching.

My courses are the condensation of years of experience, practical explanation, discovery and knowledge sharing on the subjects of data science and blockchain. I hope my enthusiasm for the subjects rubs off on you and you learn as much as I sincerely want you to!

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Course content (9 hours, 15 mins)

7 sections • 17 lectures

Section 1: Introduction (45 mins) - FREE

1. Tutor - Joel Smalley
   A brief introduction describing the experience of the instructor, an outline of the course contents and reiteration of the learning objectives.

2. What is blockchain?
   Simple answers to a simple question - high-level, technical and conceptual.

3. Blockchain Definition
   A statement defining what blockchain is, setting out some key words and concepts that will be explained in detail in later lectures.

Section 2: Ledgers (45 mins) - FREE

4. Data Records
   A very brief historical context of ledgers and what they are used for in society.

5. Digital Ledgers (Databases)
   Many ledgers have been digitalised. This lecture explains some advantages of digitalisation and prerequisites of data integrity and reliability.

Section 3: Applications (45 mins) - FREE

6. User Interfaces
   An introduction to user interfaces and why they are important in the era of digital ledgers.

7. Web 2.0
   A brief explanation of what web 2.0 is and how it fits with the current server/client paradigm.

Section 4: Distributed Ledger Technology (2 hours)

8. Overview
   A description of the key features of distributed ledger technology and why it is important for blockchain.

9. Consensus
   A deeper dive into the core component of DLT - how node operators agree on how to update the shared ledger.

10. Replication and Synchronisation
    A deeper dive into how the updates to the ledger are propagated across the network.

11. State Machine
    An introduction to the state machine, an abstract computational model at the heart of consensus, replication and synchronisation.

Section 5: What is Blockchain? (2 hours)

12. Overview
    The simple extension to DLT that makes it a blockchain.

13. Hashing
    Introduction to hashing  a key component of cryptography without which a blockchain simply wouldn't be a blockchain. Plus other benefits.

14. Cryptography and Accounts
    A further investigation into cryptography, examining the concept of asymmetric (public/private) keys, signatures and identity on the blockchain.

Section 6: The Blockchain Network (2 hour)

15. Definition
    A return to the original definition in the context of the course learnings.

16. Topology
    A concise summary of the various components that come together to make a blockchain network and how it works in practice.

Section 7: Conclusion (1 hour)

17. Application of Blockchain
    Now you know "what" a blockchain is, we can introduce concepts of "why" it is relevant and "how" it can be used, leading into future courses on Web 3.0, Distributed Autonomous Organisations and enterprise blockchain.