Skilled cybersecurity professionals are worth their weight in gold. While cybersecurity is at the forefront of every business in today’s digital world, our national ratio of existing cybersecurity workers to cybersecurity job openings is only 2.6 compared to a national average of 5.6 for all jobs. This talent gap creates a great deal of competition for this coveted resource, and the lower salaries paid by state government, smaller budgets and long work hours make it challenging for us to compete with private sector entities. Enter blockchain and OIT’s Veterans Transition Program.

Blockchain came to prominence in 2009 with the rise of the digital currency known as Bitcoin, which is used to facilitate payments. Until recently, there was not much thought about how the technology could be used outside of the financial world. But things are starting to change.

The State of Colorado is already seeing good use cases for blockchain and related technologies to help us manage data security and anything that deals with financial transactions. Blockchain can also be used for other data that can be expressed in code such as driver or occupational licenses, birth, death or educational certificates, voter information, property records and much more.

In fact, its usage is so compelling that forward-thinking Colorado legislation has been introduced to allow my team at the Governor’s Office of Information Technology to explore the costs of blockchain technology and how it might be used to help protect the vast amount of data entrusted to us, solve digital identity-related problems and to ensure the integrity of distributed security workloads. Passage of the bill would also direct the Colorado Department of State to consider using blockchain for business licensing records.

Blockchain technology has built-in trust, so just think of its potential when introduced to state systems. Users will feel confident that their identities will remain safe and intact when conducting online business with the state to do things like submit their tax returns, apply for benefits, renew their driver licenses or apply for permits.

Consumers of state services are required to enter their personal information over and over again for each discrete transaction. State governments have long struggled to find a secure solution to change this dynamic so that residents can enter their information once and have it accessible when they apply for or use other services. A permissioned blockchain database could finally make this a reality.

Blockchain’s near real-time capabilities will make it faster for transactions to be verified and completed, saving time for state customers and state workers. Contracts that typically take months to be processed could instead be finalized in a matter of days. Land and business registration transactions could be completed in days or even minutes.