Colorado Appoints its First Ever Blockchain Architect

Interesting news come from Colorado, USA, as the state got their own, very first Blockchain Solution Architect.

“The Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) announced the appointment of Thaddeus (Thad) Batt as the state’s first ever Blockchain Solution Architect”, stands in the OIT’s press release from May 14th, 2019.

Indeed, the new position is reflected on the LinkedIn profile of this IT veteran who worked as chief technology officer for Spire Digital, a Denver-based software development company, for almost twenty years, and who’s also been running his own blockchain consulting practice for the last year, Blockchain Industries.

According to the press release, Batt “will lead the blockchain program and explore how these technologies can be used to help protect the vast amount of data entrusted to the State of Colorado, solve digital identity-related problems, and ensure the integrity and security of distributed workloads.” Furthermore, his duties include developing the state’s blockchain infrastructure, educating others on the value of blockchain, identifying optimal criteria for blockchain usage in applications, as well as working with agency teams in identification of blockchain use cases, stand up pilot programs, and finally evaluating the results.

“The creation of this Blockchain Solution Architect role is breaking new ground and a step in the right direction to secure Colorado as a leader in blockchain innovation,” said Jared Polis, the Governor of Colorado and a blockchain supporter. It was Gov. Polis’ office that created and filled the new position for a Blockchain Solution Architect, in an effort to greatly expand the use of blockchain technology in this U.S. state.

His office managed to create the role thanks to state legislation passed in 2018, called “Cyber Coding Cryptology For State Records”, which created a mandate for the OIT to explore advanced ledger technologies such as blockchain, as well as seek out and implement new solutions to protect trusted, sensitive, and confidential information from “criminal, unauthorized, or inadvertent manipulation or theft”. Within this, the role of the Blockchain Solution Architect’s position is to lead the initiative by “utilizing enterprise architecture methodologies to define opportunities and execute the deployment of distributed ledger technologies such as blockchain,” as stated in the release.

“The state is actively looking at ways emerging technologies such as blockchain can help us better serve Coloradans, and this role will help lead the way,” Chief Information Officer and Executive Director Theresa Szczurek was quoted as saying in the release.