The Innovation Bank: Blockchain Technology and the Decentralization of the Engineering Professions

The Innovation Bank is a novel business method that integrates and capitalizes knowledge assets. The Innovation Bank is an application of game theory, actuarial math and a simple native “proof-of-stake” blockchain. The system aims to unify the global engineering and scientific disciplines by incentivizing individual practitioners to form knowledge asset networks among each other by producing claims and validations related to observable and measurable events. Each claim and associated validation forms a node in a network for which each participant is awarded a cryptographic token memorializing earned stake (equity) in the system. A secure, validated, and decentralized knowledge repository and access management system is secured by a simple native blockchain. Revenue is generated through the liquidation of earned tokens on an external market to third parties seeking access to network metadata for business intelligence. The intrinsic value of the network grows as the number of participants increases. As participation increases, the quantity and quality of the transaction records also increases. Third-party buyers may include banks, insurance companies, and private enterprise.