So, during my final year at Derby as a
computer science student I had to
complete a dissertation, and so for my
dissertation I decided to develop a
decentralised marketplace such as eBay,
just without eBay. So, for this I use
blockchain technology which is a big
buzzword in the industry right now. And
from this I actually generated a
proof-of-concept artifact which was
novel, nothing similar existed in
research at the time. So, having had
issues with marketplace in the past, I was
intrigued to see whether we could use
blockchain to remove the central
organisation that caused issues with
these marketplaces and have a
decentralised marketplace. So, I had to
begin by reviewing lots of literature
around what people were doing with
blockchain and how blockchain works and
the problems still around in the
technology that this stopped certain
things happening. It had been covered for
things like data and financial products,
like derivatives, but just not for
physical goods. So, I decided to start
looking into how I could make such an
application and it quickly became
obvious why maybe people haven't looked
this good yet, there are still a few
problems that need solving, and while I
didn't solve these I suggested potential
groups forward based on the research that
I've done. So, the end of my research I
generated an actual application for
trading physical goods, while it still had
a few problems, it had the very basics of
a marketplace and could be deployed for
use. Overall, I really enjoyed the process
of creating my final year dissertation.
Working alongside my dissertation too was
great. Your dissertation tutors are a
valuable resource and I suggest anyone
doing a dissertation in the future make the most
use of them as possible, go and see them
regularly, get their feedback and use what
they say to improve the work that you're
doing. It really does help and having
them on your side always makes life a
lot easier.
So, between me and my dissertation tutor we decided
to produce a paper from my thesis, which
we submitted to a workshop at a
conference in Berlin, which was hosted by
company called FraunHofer fokus, who are a large
Research Institute in Germany. My paper
was accepted and I was invited to attend
the conference in Berlin and present my
work. So, I fly to Germany, I spent four
nights in Berlin and five days. Three
days at the conference and two days just
kind of settling into Germany and doing
bit sightseeing.
The conference itself was great. I got to meet and
network with lots of like-minded people,
producing similar kind of work and I got
to see lots of the cutting-edge work
that was being done both at FraunHofer 
and at the conference itself. The social
side of the conference was great too.
They hosted plenty of social events for
us in the evenings or those lots of
free German food and free German beer.
Of course the main purpose of my trip was
to present my paper to the workshop. So,
that consisted of a 20 minute
presentation, followed by questions
relating to the paper. I was really
nervous about that, that was, when they
actually happened it went pretty well,
but all through the days leading got to
me doing the presentation I would be
nervous but following that and I could
really relax, settle into the conference and
enjoy the rest of my time, learning new
things and meeting the new people and
socialising with the people that I'd
met. I met some people who I've since kept
in touch with, so overall it was a really
good experience, I'm really glad I got
to go, hopefully it's an opportunity that
more students get to have in the future
just go and research within novel.
