Impressions from HICSS 51
Impressions from the “51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences” and from Big Island. On the 4th of January, I presented “Knowledge Blockchains” at HICSS 51.
Following the presentation, we had an interesting discussion about the application of the approach in public and private blockchains as well as implementation aspects. Out of the papers of our minitrack Creation and Appropriation of Knowledge Systems, the paper was chosen by Prof. Smolnik as a nominee for the Best Paper Award in the Knowledge Innovation and Entrepreneurial Systems track. Due to an omission in the printed program I just found this out on Thursday (4th) – much to my delight.
Blockchain Contributions at HICSS 51
Regarding other paper sessions, the following minitracks were most interesting for me – for obvious reasons:
- Distributed Ledger Technology, the Blockchain
- Blockchain and Fintech
- The Digital Supply Chain of the Future
Personal highlights:
- Breaking Bad: De-Anonymising Entity Types on the Bitcoin Blockchain Using Supervised Machine Learning | Mikkel Alexander Harlev, Haohua Sun Yin, Klaus Christian Langenheldt, Raghava Mukkamala, Ravi Vatrapu (track 1.) – won the best paper award in the internet track
- Tribal Governance: The Business of Blockchain Authentication | Gianluca Miscione, Rafael Ziolkowski, Liudmila Zavolokina, Gerhard Schwabe (track 2.)
- Chains in Chains - Logic and Challenges of Blockchains in Supply Chains | Giulia Baruffaldi, Henrik Sternberg (track 3.)
Overall, the link of blockchains and cryptocurrencies was part of many discussions, usually referring to Bitcoin as the predominant application. Multiple papers surveyed practitioners; it became clear that currency is the only application at this moment, while other approaches, e.g. for supply chains, are still only applied in the lab, even though the core technology of Bitcoin is now almost 10 years old.
The Big Island of Hawaii
Also, I very much enjoyed the setting of the conference hotel and the diverse nature of Big Island:
Hilton Conference Hotel
Hilton Conference Hotel
Waipio Valley Outlook
Rainforest at Akaka Falls
Sunset at Mauna Kea (4200 m)
Puu Oo Volcano
Kīlauea Iki Krater
Waipio Valley