It has been a pleasure for me to preside over the tribunal that has assessed the thesis “A model of governance for eDemocracy processes based on a blockchain neural network” presented by Dr. Francisco Luis Benítez Martínez and directed by Drs. María Visitación Hurtado Torres and Esteban Romero Frías, at the University of Granada.

This study has been inspired by the need to establish a new technological framework for electronic democracy spaces (eDemocracy), in order to develop new governance processes and new empowerment tools for the citizen. To this end, the potential of blockchain technology has been used to design new processes and tools of eParticipation.

A bottom-up model is proposed, to be driven by local administrations. It is a SaaS (Software as a System) model relying on the construction of public clouds to facilitate its scalability and deployment.

The objective of the presented research work is the creation of an eParticipation tool based on a BaaS (Blockchain as a Service) solution, called VoteKeeper designed as a tokenized reputation and citizen reward model, to be used by the local administration. The solution allows for full transparency in processes, guarantees the privacy of the choices made and enables new spaces for citizen empowerment.

A very interesting and innovative project that will undoubtedly have a great impact. It is a reference in this field.

Posted by Juan M. Corchado

Juan Manuel Corchado (15 May 1971, Salamanca, Spain) is Professor at the University of Salamanca. He has been Vice-Rector for Research from 2013 to 2017 and Director of the Science Park of the University of Salamanca. Elected as Dean of the Faculty of Science twice, he holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Salamanca and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of the West of Scotland. He leads the renowned BISITE (Bioinformatics, Intelligent Systems and Educational Technology) Research Group, created in 2000. Director of the IoT Digital Innovation Hub and President of the AIR Institute, J. M. Corchado is also Visiting Professor at the Osaka Institute of Technology since January 2015, Visiting Professor at the Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Member of the Advisory Group on Online Terrorist Propaganda of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (EUROPOL). J. M. Corchado has been president of the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society, and academic coordinator of the University Institute for Research in Art and Animation Technology at the University of Salamanca, as well as researcher at the Universities of Paisley (UK), Vigo (Spain) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK). He currently combines all his activity with the direction of Master programmes in Security, Digital Animation, Mobile Telephony, Information Systems Management, Internet of Things, Social Media, 3D Design and Printing, Blockchain, Z System, Industry 4.0, Agile Project Management, and Smart Cities & Intelligent Buildings, at the University of Salamanca and his work as editor-in-chief of the journals ADCAIJ (Advances in Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence Journal), OJCST (Oriental Journal of Computer Science and Technology) or Electronics MDPI (Computer Science & Engineering section). J. M. Corchado mainly works on projects related to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain, IoT, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Smart Cities, Smart Grids and Sentiment Analysis. He has recently been included in the board of trustees of the AstraZeneca Foundation, along with other health professionals and researchers recognised for bringing scientific knowledge closer to society.

All Posts Website