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The thought of Bitcoin as a way to change the way we vote was considered during the early days of the new technology. In 2012, computer scientists in Canada were looking to exploit the capabilities of Bitcoin as “a form of ‘carbon dating’ for digital information and something that would make electronic voting more secure.” Blockchain-Related Voting System Startups Among the startups that followed in an attempt to build upon the blockchain infrastructure to create a secure voting system was a Virginia-based company called FollowMyVote. Adam Ernest, the company's CEO, stated that “there is a common misconception that voting cannot be done online in a secure way. However, the introduction of blockchain technology is changing the conversation.” Another company working on creating a platform that uses blockchain technology to replace or enhance the current voting methods used today is BitCongress, which released a White Paper on its approach. The company uses blockchain technology...

Public works projects are typically large and involve mountains of paperwork and certifications around legal, financial, and ethical standards. In Italy, companies tendering bids for public works contracts of more than EUR 150,000 must be certified through a process that entails reviewing 10 years’ worth of an applicant’s business records. Much of this is done through manual workflows. This makes collecting, organizing, reviewing, and storing documents slow and tedious, with a lot of back-and-forths. Once documents are filed in a management system, they’re inaccessible to outside stakeholders, leading to uncertainty about their correctness, completeness, and authenticity. To compound matters, the process lacks a documented audit trail — traceability now required by the National Anti-Corruption Authority (ANAC). Challenges to modernize this certification process led UNIONSOA (The National Association of Certification Bodies Society as known as SOAs) to identify an opportunity for gr...