The Community Speaks segment is written by select members of cryptocurrency coin or token project communities who want to update the Altcoin Buzz Army about news surrounding the project they represent. The goal of the Community Speaks Segment is to bring these community members in to introduce the Altcoin Buzz Army to their opinions surrounding their respective projects and keep them updated on its progress. Any ideas or opinions expressed here do not necessarily align with those of the Altcoin Buzz core team.
Hi Altcoin Buzz community,
2018 has been a fantastic year for growth in the blockchain space.
Personally, I have been attending crypto events, writing articles, and managing the community on behalf of my favorite team, Unibright. Since 2019 is quickly approaching, I want to take this opportunity to review the year’s progress with a short interview with the Unibright founders — but we’ll get to that in a second.
The last couple of weeks have been very exciting for Unibright. Unibright recently released an article this month outlining what they have been working on for their first pilot client, Deutsche Bahn (the largest railway company in Europe). Unibright is working to tokenize their ecosystem.
Image above: Stefan Schmidt (CTO Unibright), Akram Sioud (DeutscheBahn Vertrieb) and Marten Jung (CEO Unibright) at DBVertrieb, Frankfurt
Akram Sioud, BI developer and blockchain enthusiast at DB Distribution, consulted Unibright after successfully pitching the initial concept to the executive board of Deutsche Bahn.
Together, they developed a blockchain based solution for bringing together all connected services regarding travel (tickets, vouchers, local transport, accommodation, local train networks).
There was also the launch of their new website, https://unibright.solutions, where Unibright offers different packages for blockchain consulting.
For me personally, the best thing to see over the last couple of weeks was the launch of the beta version of the Unibright Framework. See for yourself how easy it is to create smart contracts, and still monitor ongoing processes without needing to write a single line of code.
Unibright will do a TEAM AMA (“Ask me anything”) during the New Years Kick Off.
The AMA will be done with the core team members from the office in Bingen am Rhein in Germany. Anyone who wants to join our meetup online is welcome. Visit the Unibright Telegram chat for a final confirmation on the date.
Interview with the founders
I have decided to conduct a short interview with the Unibright founders, especially for this Altcoin Buzz article, so please read this before our AMA in the New Year, as some questions may have already been answered here.
Marten Jung, CEO, and Stefan Schmidt, CTO, are the “Batman and Robin” of blockchain-business integration. Together they have probably spent more time in front of computer screens than all the users in a Hong Kong internet cafe.
I have gathered a selection of questions from our online communities and asked a number of blockchain figures to give their take on blockchain-business integration, so buckle down for a great read!
Q: How is the dynamic duo of Unibright doing today?
A: Fine and busy as always – thanks! All the days in the blockchain world are very exciting, a lot of things happen, and a lot of things have to be done.
Q: What is the vision of Unibright.io?
A: To bring blockchain technology to widespread enterprise usage.
Q: What makes you so convinced that Unibright will be the big player in blockchain-business integration?
A: We have a unique product and are not “just” another blockchain. With our strong integration perspective – bringing new technology to enterprise customers for more than 15 years – we offer a solution to add the promises of blockchain technology to enterprise business processes. Without binding to one blockchain protocol, we offer a product that enables our customers to design their use case, after which we generate automatically all the objects and connections needed.
Q: When and how did you come into contact with blockchain technology?
A: On a professional basis that was back in 2016; on a personal level some team members have been in it a lot longer, having been fascinated by the concept of a decentralised consensus mechanism and how it can be built.
Q: The Unibright Token is a utility token. Is it possible that it will become, or be treated as, a security token in the future?
A: We do not see any sign of it becoming a security token, and do not think this will happen.This is because the Unibright Token is the blueprint of a utility token (as seen here in Germany), used as a voucher or entrance token to use the Unibright Framework.
Q: Some people are of the opinion that utility tokens cannot be traded. They think that Utility tokens must be used solely for the purpose for which they were conceived. How do you view this?
A: There needs to be a way to buy and sell utility tokens for our customers to use the platform with its capacity. We decided to not do this ourselves but have markets and secondary markets find the right price for our platform based on supply and demand. This gives all participants maximum freedom and opportunities.
Q: Unibright has two key areas it needs to focus on. One being the community that have bought tokens and supported Unibright. The other is the development of the product and the end users who will use it. Which is the more important to the future of Unibright?
A: There is no answer on what is more important. By sticking to working on our product, finding more customers and in general bringing forward enterprise blockchain technology usage, we support both areas very well. We very much adhere to our roadmap and in addition work with the feedback, we get when talking to companies and experts in the field.
Q: The pressures and stresses associated with launching a blockchain product, especially during this bear market, are understandably rather high. How do you ensure that you stay fit, focused and positive?
A: By sticking to the product and from time to time taking a step back. Of course, it is always good to refresh with a hobby, family, music, and sports.
Q: What has been the biggest challenge of 2018 for Unibright?
A: To get all the expectations from different sides under one hood and align them with the product development in a legitimate way.
Q: Looking towards the future, what does it hold for Unibright?
A: It holds a lot for Unibright. We believe that blockchain technology will have a huge impact on enterprises and information technology in general. But no one can name the exact date when it will be in mainstream usage. With our blockchain agnostic, “no-coding-needed” approach we are perfectly set up for the future.
Q: What are your thoughts on the future of the cryptocurrency markets, as well as blockchain technology in general?
A: As we are no financial experts, so we can’t do any predictions on cryptocurrency markets. As for blockchain technology in general, we see great potential in the features decentralised consensus technology offers. Combining centralised with decentralised technology is crucial here, integrating the two worlds. To us it is obvious that it is not about replacing one with the other, but making use of the new possibilities that emerge by combining those, especially in the enterprise world.
Q: Unibright Framework is blockchain agnostic — what exactly does this mean? Is Unibright able to connect to every blockchain?
A: From a technical standpoint, the framework really is able to connect to any blockchain as it is designed that way. From a business perspective, we choose which blockchains to add support for in our framework — meaning generating smart contracts or assets for them and having adapters to connect them to other systems and blockchains. We constantly monitor all the blockchain protocols and evaluate which implementation might be a fit to a certain use-case. If we see something of interest, we will decide whether to add that blockchain to our watchlist.
Q: Unibright has the ability to integrate on private blockchains, such as Hyperledger. In what kind of situations would you advise companies to use private blockchains over public blockchain, and vice versa?
A: The decision on which type of blockchain to use is determined by the use case a customer wants to accomplish. When it comes to transparency, a public blockchain might be the right fit to prove to literally “everyone” whatever has to be made transparent. In a closed network of some entities sharing sensitive data, a private blockchain comes to mind as a secured and tamperproof communication channel.
Q: As far as you know, what competitors does Unibright have, direct or otherwise?
A: We really do not see any competitors on our level. Other projects and companies bringing blockchain technology forward and enlarging its usage are more like partners for us. All entities in the blockchain field are in it together — to educate about this exciting and novel technology, helping it mature and becoming more and more accepted.
Q: How do businesses buy Unibright tokens in an easy and safe way to utilize the framework?
A: There are exchanges our token is listed on, please see our website for details. Additionally, we advise our clients and interested parties on how to do so.
Q: Will the Roadmap be updated for 2019 and beyond with more details and milestones?
A: Being product ready, we think that it’s more valuable to release news of what was really done, instead of announcing promises. During the first year after a Token Launch, a roadmap is essential to show the community that we keep up on our promises and deliver – in our case even faster than initially announced. The future goals of Unibright will be updated and fixed along with the adoption of blockchain technology and all the feedback and input we get from customers and experts.
Q: Which industry will be the first big adopter of blockchain technology?
A: Obviously, it was the “financial industry” – with Bitcoin and ICOs based on Ether. Looking at traditional businesses, we don’t think it will be some specific industry. It will be and it is the most innovative companies, those that have some vision and are willing to jump into the blockchain world. Many industries share common processes, like approval processes, tracing processes or supply chain management. That’s why we did not abstract our templates on an industry, but rather on a use case level.
Q: Which of the existing templates produced by Unibright do you think will prove most popular?
A: Tracking and tracing on the blockchain to make business processes more transparent. And approval processes, putting reliable signatures of decisions made into blockchains.
Q: In the recent demo we saw that Unibright is able to integrate blockchain with SAP. Has there been much interest in this feature, from existing business contacts or otherwise?
A: Yes absolutely. From an enterprise standpoint integration is always one of the top issues when talking about new technologies. When a new technology comes up, 100% of the existing systems do not use this new technology and can not connect to it. So, it is a requirement to have an integrating solution that connects the old world to the new one.
Q: Unibright has several partnerships with other blockchain projects, such as NEM, Tolar and Own. Should we expect more partnerships like this in the future?
A: We are always on the lookout for projects and partners that fit into our portfolio and visions. So, it would be no big surprise if there will be other partners too. But we are not bound to the blockchain field alone, as our collaboration with Microsoft Germany or Zühlke show.
Q: What passions, hobbies and other interests do you have besides “technology” which you want to share with us?
A: Artificial intelligence and renewable/alternative energy concepts are often topics within team meetings, too. Music also plays a big role for many of the core team members, and doing some sports should definitely appear on the agenda in 2019 more often than it was possible during the ICO.
Q: Do you have some tips for all the supporters of Altcoin Buzz?
Do not get lost in some short-term view. Focus on the novel feature decentralised consensus brings and evaluate projects on how they help making use of this technology. Be aware of the fact that some patterns like “technology-adoption” repeat, so have a look at how other new technologies made their way.
The most important: do something completely different from time to time – do not get focused only on one thing. Great ideas often show up when we at least expect them!
And of course, some last words from you!
All people in the blockchain field are way ahead of people outside. So, together we can all make blockchain and its features known to the broader audience. We invite everyone to work on this with us and all projects involved, to come up with something better and more powerful than we have today.
Thank you for reading this interview. Stay safe on the cryptocurrency markets, and remember that this technology is here to stay no matter the price.
Regards,
Jack
This article was brought to you by a member of our Community Speaks team. The Community Speaks team is made up of members of different project communities who want to make their voice heard in the Altcoin Buzz community. If you are interested in becoming part of our Community Speaks team please contact @Garrett59 on telegram.
