How did I become a Blockchain Developer? by Ece Kubilay

Automatic Summary

Delve Into Blockchain: Insight from a Dynamic Innovator

The world of technology often propels us into new eras of innovation and advancement. Aligning to such a propelling phenomenon, welcome to the intriguing journey of Ubilla, an insightful Blockchain expert.

A Glimpse into Ubilla's Journey to Blockchain

Ubilla, a Computer Engineering postgraduate from the highly esteemed Technical University of Munich, found herself drawn towards Blockchain while pursuing her Master's degree. Being raised in a family of engineers greatly facilitated her interest in the technical realm. Early exposure to the workings of Blockchain through academic courses sparked an inquisitive flame that led to increased research and a Master's thesis on the ‘security vulnerability analysis of Ethereum smart contracts. In the process, Ubilla discovered her passion and proficiency in the field and enjoyed answering the myriad questions that surrounded Blockchain at the time.

Finding Purpose in Blockchain Technology

Securing a job in the Blockchain domain was no easy feat, given its niche appeal at the time. However, Ubilla's perseverance paid off when she landed a Software Developer role with Fujitsu, which had a dedicated department for Blockchain and was ardently investing in the technology. The team focused on co-creating proof of concepts (POCs) and minimum viable products (MVPs) for early adopters in various market segments. As a software developer, Ubilla's role is versatile, with the responsibility of handling the backend and front-end operations alongside Blockchain maintenance.

Panning Out the Potential of Blockchain

Ubilla's work at Fujitsu is reflective of the novel ways in which Blockchain technology can enhance trust between entities within a system. For instance, in one of the POCs, Blockchain technology was implemented to record the actions of various stakeholders involved in addressing an incident at a subway station.

In this scenario, imagining a chain of events following an incident at a subway station:

  • A monitoring equipment noticies an unusual event and raises an alarm.
  • The local security is informed, and subsequent actions are required.
  • The situation is escalated to the appropriate authorities and emergency units, each contributing to an action plan.

These actions are continuously recorded on the Blockchain, creating a transparent, immutable, and easily accessible log for auditing purposes. This application of Blockchain technology underscores its potential beyond its current association with cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance by offering a multitude of use-cases.

Blockchain: The Road Ahead

Ubilla acknowledges that while Blockchain is no doubt a powerful technology, it still has much maturing to do. Yet, the prospects that it opens up for the future are promising. For those interested in delving into the field, there are countless online resources. For instance, Hyperledger Foundation offers invaluable resources for those working on permissioned Blockchains, equipping budding Blockchain enthusiasts with insights galore.

Ubilla's journey in Blockchain has affirmed her belief in the technology's potential for transformation and innovation. As we continue to explore the realm of Blockchain, let's remember that it is the curiosity and relentless pursuit of knowledge that power the most remarkable journeys in the world of technology.

Have more questions about Blockchain and Ubilla's journey? Tune in to my next session to quench your thirst for knowledge on this fascinating technology!


Video Transcription

Ok, I think we can start now. It's 1140 because I have exactly 10 minutes. Um Thank you for coming to this session. First of all, I'm sorry for my surroundings at the moment. I'm in a car at the airport.I could not risk missing this flight because I will be flying for my wedding. Apologies for that in advance. Um All right. So my name is Ubilla and I want to first start with giving a little background about myself. Um Thank you very much. Let me share my screen quickly. All right. So um so a little background info about me. I'm originally from Turkey, born and raised there. Both of my parents are engineers and having a mother that is a unique system administrator. I also ended up studying computer engineering for my bachelor's and then I briefly worked for IBM in Turkey. But after that, I decided to do my master's degree in Germany. So in 2016, I moved to Munich to do my master's in Computer science at Technical University of Munich. And um it is a really amazing university and I kind of started my Blockchain journey there. I was mainly taking it security related courses. And in one of those, I was briefly introduced to Blockchain and not, uh, Bitcoin or Ethereum that we all already knew, but the underlying technology and how it really works. Um, and I found that very interesting.

Um, and I recall that everybody in the classroom was slightly confused, so we didn't 100% comprehend how it really works. So I went home and I did a lot of research and reading just out of interest and my interest just grew and grew. So when it was time to write a master's thesis, I decided I will find a topic in Blockchain and it was hard. There was very rare, but I found one and I started writing my thesis at Frano Institute, German Scientific Institute and it was about security vulnerability analysis of Ethereum smart contract. These are little programs that run on, on eter Blockchain. And well, when I finished writing my teases, I noticed that I became more and more knowledgeable in the topic. And I had this feeling that the topic was interesting for everyone. But there were a lot of questions and a lot of question marks in people's heads. So I liked that people came to me for those questions and I had the answers. And um it was, it was a really good feeling and it helped me through networking. I participated some conferences, I participated Blockchain Turkey platform and we were organizing events and I was meeting a lot of people um answering these unknown questions. Um It was also really feeding my soul.

Um So after that, I started looking for a job, a full time job in this field. And it was not easy at that time, especially in, in Germany, the opportunities were quite a few. Um So I worked for a consultancy company for like five months as a software developer. And after five months, I became aware of fujitsu, I was aware of Fujitsu as a company, but I did not know that they're investing a lot in Blockchain technology globally. They're a member of Hyper Ledger Foundation. Um And that they do a lot of interesting things and that they have an office in Munich and they have a Blockchain department and they were looking for someone. So I applied and I luckily got the job and I have been working there as a sulfur developer ever since 2.5 years. Um What we are doing there is I think very interesting, we work together with early adopters from all kinds of market segments for co creation of Po cs and mvps with Blockchain technology. And um so as a software developer, my job is not just Blockchain, of course, because when you have an application that is based on Blockchain, Blockchain is just a component of it. There's also a back end, front end. So you're working on all all of these parts.

Um But it's very interesting and maybe I can give an example to one of the PO CS that we did in the past. Um So Blockchain is, is a decentralized network of entities that don't necessarily trust each other in the first place. So we kind of use Blockchain technology as an enabler of trust and in this POC that we did. Um so imagine there's an incident in a subway station and there's a monitoring equipment um noticing this and raising an alarm. So the local security is informed and they have to take a action, maybe they need to escalate this to a different entity. Uh It could be the police or the fire department and then they need to escalate it to an emergency unit and they need to take an action. Um So it's like a chain of events and many, many different stakeholders that don't necessarily trust each other. So what we do is we keep a record for every single event um that these stakeholders um conduct on the Blockchain. And it is um there is a copy of all of these recordings on all the entities side and it's transparent and it's immutable and accessible. So if something goes wrong and there is an auditing body that needs to audit this process, um we have 100% transparency and it, it really improves this process of auditing an example that I wanted to give because when we think of Blockchain, most of the time we think of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance.

But there is um a lot more that the technology um offers I need to check the time. So stop sharing my screen now. So a lot more that this technology offers in many, many interesting use cases. Um Well, yeah, and um I believe that the technology is still very immature, of course, but it holds a lot of potential for the long run. Um A actually, I think maybe we can uh end my part here and use the remaining time. I thought I wouldn't have any remaining time. Um But for questions because I really wanted to do that. Do you guys have any questions for me? Well, when not, um I can also briefly mention if there is, oh, there's a question. OK. Yeah, that's what I wanted to also quickly talk about if there were no questions. Um the resources. Well, for me, it was um a lot of just our articles on the internet in the beginning because in the beginning, we didn't have so much resources and I was learning about Ethereum mainly. Um There was, there was a lot of academical papers that I could learn from because it was the cryptography of it. It was the mathematics behind it. But um at the moment, things got really simplified. There is frameworks Blockchain frameworks that we can use, build applications.

Um There are frameworks for Ethereum and for Hyper ledger, Ethereum is a public Blockchain, but if you are um implementing a project for um enterprises, then you have the permission blockchains like hyper Ledger and Hyper Ledger has many, many different frameworks. And it also offers courses to learn these frameworks. For example, hyperedge fabric is the most prominent one. It is very widely used on most enterprise Blockchain projects. And um when you just Google that you see that hyperedge foundation offers courses um for these frameworks and all you need to learn is essentially how you can use them. You don't necessarily have to know how they work. So I hope this answers your question. Are there any other questions? I'm waiting for a second. Oh, we got one more minute. I think we can um close it here. Thank you very much for joining the session and listening. Um Well, um I wish you all very nice rest of the day then. Hi.