Kimberley Van Luchem
Kimberley Van Luchem works at the municipality of Roeselare. She focusses on European projects and is the project leader of the BLING-project.
1. How is Roeselare involved in blockchain; can you tell us a bit about your (latest) developments?
Roeselare was already involved in some other digital EU-projects and was eager to be part of the BLING project. Blockchain is a technology that is new for Roeselare municipality and we were excited to learn more about the opportunities the technology has for local governments, but also to experiment and develop new best practices. By taking part in a European project, we have the opportunity to learn from other partners and receive continuous feedback.
The pilot we have done in Roeselare in 2021 is called “Healthy on the blockchain”. We have set it up together with Howest, one of the knowledge partners in BLING. For communication reasons we renamed the pilot, so it became the “Fit4Work Challenge 2021”. We experienced it as a good example to introduce blockchain in our organization, in a non-technical way. What was the Fit4Work Challenge about? We linked exercising and blockchain, we wanted to stimulate healthy living and active training for employees of the city of Roeselare. This is done by using wearables to track their training progress (for instance the number of steps per day). A personal coach was part of the Challenge for advice on how to pursue a healthy lifestyle (dedicated work-outs based on the person’s activities).
The Fit4Work Challenge is now finished and the evaluation document will be published in the first quarter of 2022.
2. Which blockchain topics do you find the most interesting or promising?
I am not a technical expert, however from what I learned from webinars and information sessions I think the pilots on Self Sovereign Identity (SSI) are the most interesting ones. These kind of solutions seem to be the most promising ones for local governments. Digital services, built in a human centered way, are the future. To make this possible, authentication is key and blockchain can thus play a big role in the digital identity aspect.
3. What is the most valuable lesson you have learned so far by working together with international partners in this European project?
In this project, there are partners from different backgrounds and expertise. This makes the partnership better, because everyone of us has a different perspective on blockchain (technical perspective, juridical perspective, user perspective, government perspective, business model perspective) and its potential. Combining all these fields, expectations, perspectives, skills and knowledge gives you a broader view on the possibilities of blockchain. And the variety of our use cases shines a light on the different domains where blockchain can be applied.