Oman Blockchain Services and Solutions Company, the government entity responsible for the rollout of blockchain in the country first launched the Oman Blockchain platform in March of 2019. In a twitter post by Muscat Clearing and Deposits it stated, that BSS has signed a Blockchain Solutions and use agreement with the Muscat Clearing and Deposits to provide Blockchain solutions for their general assembly meetings and voting process. The agreement was signed by Dr. Ammar Bin Darwish Al Obaidani, CCO of Blockchain Solutions and Services & the General Manager of Muscat Clearing and Deposit Mr. Haitham Bin Salim al Salmee, in attendance was the CEO of Oman’s Capital Market Authority Sheikh HE Sheikh Abdullah Salim Al Salmi and heads of public government entities. In the Times of Oman article its states, that the agreements was signed with Trust Chains Solutions and Services (Salasil al-Thiqa) which is synonymous to BSS Company to supply programs, systems and services to MCDC for the management of meetings and electronic polling in joint stock companies’ societies by using ‘Blockchain’ applications. Abdulsalam bin Mohammed Al Murshidi, Chairman of Salasil al-Thiqa also known as BSS said that his company has a strategy to provide services and works in tandem with Blockchain techniques. The company was founded with a view to realizing the government’s vision to facilitate business operations by applying modern technologies. Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdullah bin Salim Al Salmi, Executive Chairman of Capital Market Authority (CMA), pledged CMA’s support to all capital market establishments in the Sultanate in a bid to keep pace with advances in modern technology that serves all stakeholders of the sector. he added that the supply of electronic polling services through Blockchain technologies has become an inevitable necessity for decision making among shareholders who would no longer need to physically attend the polling sessions. Kamal Youssefi, Head of Financial Services and Academy Program at Swisscom Blockchain, in a phone call with UNLOCK, stated, ” Swisscom Blockchain infrastructure is being used in this project and we are proud to have been early supporters of Oman’s Blockchain initiatives both on an enterprise and governmental level. We are strongly committed to the succcess of blockchain implementations in the region and beyond.” Swisscom had previously carried out Hyperledger training courses in Oman and was part of the launch of the Oman blockchain platform. Earlier on May 2018, OMSB (Oman Medical speciality board) signed with BSS an agreement as part of its digital transformation plans and using Blockchain technology in the healthcare sector.

BSS Oman deploys Red Hat OpenShift to help bring services to market 3x faster

BSS (Blockchain Solutions and Services LLC), Information Technology Authority (ITA) of Oman, and technology service provider Omantel jointly announced the deployment of the national HyperLedger Fabric Platforms to speed the digital innovation efforts in the Sultanate of Oman. BSS, ITA and Omantel have chosen HyperLedger Fabric as the underlying technology for these platforms. Many are familiar with Hyperledger Fabric – a permission based blockchain platform, developed by IBM under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation. The platform is widely used by governments and corporations globally. Hyperledger Fabric provides an enterprise-ready permissioned blockchain environment with high security, privacy and smart contract capabilities through “chaincode”. An HFS research report recently placed Hyperledger Fabric as holding 52% of all Enterprise Blockchain projects in production, the highest percentage compared to all other platforms. Oman has embarked on its blockchain journey with two strategic focuses, innovation and national growth. As such Oman has created two platforms. The first platform is the development platform dubbed the “Blockchain Factory” or what is most commonly known as BaaS (Blockchain as a Service). The “Blockchain factory” was developed jointly by BSS and Swisscom Blockchain AG to allow startups, businesses, entrepreneurs, industry players, Ministries, universities, and even SMEs to explore their Blockchain use cases in an agile environment. Users of the development platform can deploy blockchains; develop use cases and chain code to gradually mature them into real life use cases of benefit to both the private and public sectors in Oman. H.E. Abdulsalam Mohammed Al-Murshidi, Executive President of the State General Reserve Fund and Chairman of Blockchain Solutions and Services stated, “The deployment of the blockchain platform in Oman is one of the most important initiatives being undertaken today. With the digitization efforts underway in Oman and regionally, the blockchain platform will empower developers, entrepreneurs, and businesses to innovate using blockchain in a flexible and safe environment, where they can then be migrated into real life production ready solutions on the National Private permissioned Platform”. The second platform is where mature and production ready blockchain applications and solutions are plugged into the nation-wide platform “The National Private Permissioned Platform”. This highly secure environment is built with three consensus nodes distributing consensus across ITA, BSS, and Omantel. Prior to deploying applications and solutions on the production environment, the solution undergoes an extensive quality assurance and code review process. Dr. Khalid M.W. Tahhan, CEO of BSS stated, “We are keen to develop blockchain applications that serve the Sultanate as well as the global economy at large. With this in mind we also want to ensure that we provide a safe, secure, and robust environment for these applications and solutions to flourish. We hope that both the private sector players and innovators will work in tandem with government to build an innovation driven ecosystem. We have already initiated development of use cases for government utilizing these platforms, which we will announce in due course, and look forward to the innovative use cases to be developed by society utilizing the Development Factory deployed”. Sheikh Talal Al-Mamari, CEO, Omantel, added, “We are proud to support the government’s digitization and innovation strategy by developing our strategic partnership with major international and local companies. Our partnership with BSS is a strong foundation which we will expand upon in the future with more joint initiatives. The first result of this strong collaboration is the rapid deployment of the Hyperledger Factory and the National Blockchain platform, which was deployed in record time.” The Oman government under the auspices of the ITA has also developed a SaaS (Software as a Service) incubation platform for the deployment of innovative use cases across Ministries and private sector. This will be coupled with the launching of a national “sandbox” environment jointly orchestrated by BSS, and ITA to create the needed regulatory support alongside the technology. The Sandbox will give regulators insight into what can be applied and what needs to be changed to incorporate innovative concepts and startups into the Oman ecosystem in a safe and secure manner. New research suggests that sandbox test environments for blockchain could help cement partnerships between governments and businesses. Heavily regulated industries such as FinTech, healthcare, transportation and manufacturing can help develop a government’s understanding of blockchain through better dialogue and the creation of joint regulatory sandboxes. Dr. Salim Bin Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA stated, “ITA and BSS will collaborate to orchestrate the relationship between startups, industry players and government legislative and regulatory bodies to develop the ecosystem needed for these innovative ideas to flourish in the coming period”. In parallel to these initiatives is a rich training environment that will work to build the needed talent base. As Dr. Khalid M.W. Tahhan states, “Oman is embarking on a progressive training program. This is a joint collaboration between BSS and Swisscom Blockchain. Furthermore, we are providing a three-day training program with Swisscom Blockchain in April and have a small number of seats remaining for anyone interested in learning more about HyperLedger Fabric.”