On Tuesday of this week the Oregon Enterprise Blockchain Venture Studio (OEBVS) unveiled the first six companies to graduate from the program. I was in awe and somewhat emotional watching this unfold.
Nearly two years ago, I conceived the idea of a Portland-based, public-private partnership that would identify promising Blockchain use cases and recruit and nurture companies to address and serve these opportunities. This dream was fulfilled on Tuesday. The corporate partners who made this happen included: The State of Oregon (Governor’s Office, Business Oregon), Moda Health, Umpqua Bank, Portland State University (PSU), Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), Smith + Crown, Consensys, Intel and managing partner and lead investor R/GA Ventures.
The first six companies were chosen to address several big picture societal and businesses use cases including: a) data privacy, property, and monetization rights, b) pharmaceutical provenance, c) rewards and incentives, and d) population health management.
This body of work has the potential to dramatically change how we interact with companies and brands, live, account for our health and wellness activities and structure and govern our society. What is most important is the combination of new thinkers in our community and the programs that are being put into place to educate our workforce, business and our community leaders about the promise of these new business models, governance processes, and the technologies that enable them. We are off and running.
It is critical for the Oregon community to harvest the momentum from this initial effort and channel it into companies the local investment community and our industries and institutions can embrace.
I am extremely grateful to all who believed in my vision and supported me in getting this started and bring it to fruition. A special thank you to Dylan Boyd, Jonathan Bradley, and the folks at R/GA for your support and execution. I can’t wait to see where this takes us.