Students enrolled in the University of Malta's Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies masters programme have built a decentralized awarding (Dapp) that has been used for voting in upcoming pupil representative elections, per a March 28 printing release.

The Dapp is congenital on top of a decentralized digital identity platform that was provided to the students past Vodafone. The election was the first alive project to be executed using Vodafone's digital identity platform.

"Nosotros are pleased to have been the first use-case for the Vodafone [digital identity] platform, and as far as nosotros tin tell a earth showtime to hold a student election on a blockchain, " said Joshua Ellul, the director of the University of Republic of malta's Middle for Distributed Ledger Technologies.

Malta Academy students build decentralized voting application

While the application was built to permit voters autonomous control over their data rather than relinquishing personal data to a centralized entity, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted some of the advantages offered by remote voting platforms. Ellul stated:

"At this time especially, given the electric current situation, information technology was of import to accept a remote voting machinery in place that enables trust and transparency thanks to the Blockchain-based solution."

Ellul stated the biggest claiming to developing the platform was "onboarding users in a trusted manner," adding that "digital identity platforms such as that provided by Vodafone provide a solution."

Voting is private but transparent, meaning that the results of an election tin exist publicly verified.

The University of Malta introduced its blockchain masters course during October 2022.

New Malta government to go on fostering a 'blockchain island'

Republic of malta has long been a crypto-friendly jurisdiction. Whether that would remain the case appeared unclear when the at present-old Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, resigned later on facing widespread allegations of abuse and ties to the political bump-off of a journalist.

While the new government-issued statements indicating that leading crypto exchange, Binance, is licensed in the land soon after taking office, the new authorities has expressed that its position regarding blockchain has not changed for the time being. They added that it will seek to consolidate blockchain with other emerging industries under the umbrella of "Digital, Financial and Innovative services."