The American University of Beirut based in Lebanon has been putting together blockchain and crypto courses, amid the devastating financial crisis and hyperinflation.
The program is being taught for the past one year and is continuing to expand further.
Harry Halpin, a founding programmer of privacy-focused Nym Technologies has been teaching the inaugural “Blockchain for Business” course for the past year.
Halpin drew inspiration from current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler’s courses at MIT, which Halpin took while working at the university.
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The end of the first semester of the blockchain course saw several students pitching LebAid, a platform for refugee remittances, to the business school’s start-up accelerator.
Another group of students put together a system of prepaid cards, which scratch off to reveal private keys granting holders access to USDT wallets with small balances. This team is currently in the university’s incubator program.
The university is planning to expand in this particular field and add a DeFi module for professionals starting in July. They are also planning to set up separate courses for graduate students with more of a programming background.
“What you really need is skilled programmers who can apply those skills to practical problems that they understand better than anyone else, in the language they speak — like Arabic,” said Halpin.
Lebanon’s economy is racked by cronyism, corruption and some of the worst hyperinflation in the world. The Lebanese lira remains officially pegged to the dollar at a rate of 1,500 to 1, but the black-market exchange rate is more like 30,000 to 1.
Amid this dire situation, Lebanon’s future business leaders are placing their bets on the blockchain tech.
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