By
Mayowa Adebajo
March 12th, 2024
Lufthansa Innovation Hub and the SAP.iO Berlin Foundry have established their partnership to launch the first ever Aviation Blockchain Challenge.
As it was announced, major airline Lufthansa had teamed up with software giant SAP. The main goal of the partnership is to launch a blockchain competition which is aimed at promoting blockchain adoption in the airline industry. Over the past several years, we have had an opportunity to observe how blockchain technology has been slowly penetrating all mainstream industries. And now, Lufthansa has decided to implement the benefits and capacities of this promising technology to the aviation industry.
The Aviation Blockchain Challenge is an ideas competition to be held by Lufthansa Innovation Hub and the SAP.iO Foundry. The organizers hope to find promising blockchain-based solutions that could enhance the traveler experience, facilitate all the processes and enhance all the procedures related to the work of airlines.
The partners want to attract the most talented blockchain specialists from all over the world. The participants will be provided with the appropriate environment to develop and test new business models. Thanks to Lufthansa’s innovation ecosystem and rich expertise combined with SAP’s assets and mentorship, even the boldest ideas will have a chance to be realized.
Thorsten Dirks, Eurowings CEO and Lufthansa Group board member, explained why they had decided to organize a competition the following way:
“Blockchain is one of the game-changing technologies of our time, which we are systematically addressing as part of our digital strategy for the Lufthansa Group. We look forward to discussing innovative solutions and initiating experiments together with our partner SAP at the Aviation Blockchain Challenge. By combining our aviation industry expertise with the Blockchain technology of a world market leader, we are creating the ideal worldwide framework for addressing Blockchain entrepreneurs with an affinity for travel and mobility”.
The Blockchain Aviation Challenge will have three separate categories: the Airline Challenge, the Traveler Challenge and the Supplier Challenge. The Airline Challenge is for offering solutions aimed at eliminating errors and increasing accuracy in airline operations.
The participants of the Traveler Challenge are invited to offer solutions that could improve the passenger experience, making flights more enjoyable and comfortable. This category is aimed at finding ideas to ensure added value for passengers.
And the third category, the Supplier Challenge, is introduced to identify ideas that would enhance transparency of supply chains and maintenance that are the key aspects for making operations of airlines reliable and safe.
The ideas submission phase of the competition will last till the 31st of August, 2018. The shortlisted ideas will be presented at the Lufthansa Innovation Forum in front of senior management from Lufthansa Group and SAP.
Though there have never been any similar contests in the aviation industry, Lufthansa is not the first company in this sphere to pay attention to the potential of blockchain. Last year, it was informed that another industry’s giant Air France KLM was considering opportunities to apply blockchain technology to track workflows within its aircraft maintenance systems.