- NEM has opened a new hub in Melbourne
- This is in addition to two others opened in Australia this year
- The hub helps businesses integrate blockchain technology into their business models
One of the most important steps that need to be taken in securing acceptance for blockchain technology is educating the public and implementing the technology in businesses. Which is what the NEM Foundation is doing by opening a blockchain hub in Melbourne, Australia. The hub is meant to not only spread awareness about blockchain but to assist business owners who are interested in it.
This is not the first but the third hub being opened by NEM, as one was opened in Australia this year in Brisbane, as well as in Westport, New Zealand.
The purpose of these hubs is also to promote NEM’s official currency, XEM, and its blockchain platform. This helps to further NEM’s dominance as the strongest blockchain community in Australia as of now.
Jason Lee, NEM’s expansion director for Australia and New Zealand, has stated that the location of Melbourne is deliberate as there is a large network of blockchain entrepreneur there.
“We want to be near that activity,” he added.
Education is key
The hub is based at Stone and Chalk and is helping to connect a number of businesses such as law firms and so on to the blockchain network.
A lot of businesses do not have the necessary support and information needed to take advantage of blockchain technology and these hubs help drive discussion and the hubs give them a physical place to access all of these.
The “flexibility of our technology” means it has applications in various spaces, NEM Australia’s lead Jian Chan says.
Lee says that the education of businesses about blockchain will drive further adoption and acceptance in society and that a lack of information could do more harm than good, saying, “a lot of information that is convoluted and sometimes misleading”
Small companies must adapt too
Large enterprises aren’t the only ones who can benefit from blockchain technology and “Startups and SMEs cannot afford to miss out.”
For a number of people in the general public, blockchain might as well be alien technology because they do not understand how it is used and how it works.
By introducing it to small businesses that people interact with on a day to day basis, this sense of mystery is removed and a greater understanding is formed.
