A team of students from American University of Sharjah (AUS) was among the top teams honored at the University Blockchain Challenge held recently in Dubai. Amro Farouk, Alfarouk Hesham and Ahmed Abubakr from the College of Engineering and Mihails Balonuskovs along with Nikita Mitin from the School of Business Administration, comprised the AUS team that achieved fourth place in the competition, which saw teams from around the world participate.

The blockchain-based solution that helped the team earn recognition in the final round was entitled Libertas Management. The solution encompassed a blockchain platform that a potential visitor to the UAE would use for the purpose of digital identity management and checking into various services. A visitor would submit all the necessary documents for meeting KYC compliance requirements for various services to the platform which would be stored securely on a blockchain database. Having done that, instead of presenting his physical documents at the point of check-in either at a hotel or a car rental service, for instance, a visitor would simply use his pre-installed mobile application to prove his identity.

The AUS team was mentored by Dr. Taha Landolsi and Dr. Gerassimos Barlas, professors in computer science and engineering.