The focus of this course is on installing a private blockchain on a cloud machine and then deploying smart contracts.This course explains how to:setup and access a cloud machine; install the Ethereum client (geth); install truffle; and to deploy a smart contract.We focus on the operational environments such as mining, contract addresses, ABIs, and options for geth.Geth has enormous flexibility and we cover the basics of how geth may be configured for a private directory, with different accounts, and mining.This is a hands-on course designed to get a student who has only knowledge of Ubuntu commands to a point in a few hours of being able to implement a new blockchain, deploy contracts, and setting up a server. Therefore, this is a practical course designed to provide real life skills needed in building blockchain based projects.This course is the first of a series of courses which are designed. This course introduces the key methods to get started. Further courses will provide more detail about coding smart contracts, accessing elasticsearch, building UIs for smart contracts, Oracles, and how smart contracts may solve business related problems.Therefore this course is a bedrock level course to get started, and from this far more is possible.