BlockchainEdu was founded in December 2014 and officially registered as a non-profit in September 2016.

There are over 1,500 members in the Association, including professors, students, and researchers from many Italian universities. Thanks to the union of individuals from multidisciplinary environments, several startups were born.

Since its establishment, the Association aims at spreading knowledge, encouraging research, and networking among its members to enable the creation of interdisciplinary projects in the Blockchain environment. They have always tried to educate correctly on the subject and implement concrete usage. One example is the notarisation of their articles and documents on blockchain: each member of the board has a key with which they sign transactions to note the documents.

Initially, many universities did not include the subject of blockchain in their courses or extracurricular activities, given their lack of knowledge and skepticism towards it. However, recently the academic world has started to delve into the topic by conducting research within their departments, organising conferences and seminars, and offering master’s courses. BlockchainEdu has helped many universities in organising lectures and conferences on the blockchain topic and witnessed the increased popularity and interest among students.

Furthermore, the Association’s Scientific Committee is composed of professors belonging to different courses of study in main Italian universities and, thus,  providing top notch accuracy in research activities.

Beyond the academic world, BlockchainEdu dealt for the first time with Public Administrations by organising a conference in the seat of the Lazio Regional Council in 2016. This marked the start of a close collaboration between institutions and academia on blockchain related topics.

Since December 2018, BlockchainEDU is part of an experts’ group who advises authorities on how to create a ‘national strategy on distributed register and blockchain technologies’. The project is being convened by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MISE).