#Goodstart
#Goodstart
Blockchain and mobile connectivity: W3 Engineers
Mobile phone connectivity is now one of the biggest concerns for refugees.
Imagine that you are arriving into a refugee camp and, without government-issued papers, you are unable to get a SIM card and so you can't find out where your family is or connect with the outside world.
W3 Engineers is working to change that using blockchain: and it's a pleasure to have Ayesha and Rakibul join me to explain how
Okay.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the good startup podcast. I'm Bonnie Nelson with another amazing story of how blockchain is being used to change people's lives. How do you use blockchain or DLT to make a difference to refugees lives? Imagine you're a refugee arriving in a new country with no identity and separated from your family. You don't exist officially and so you've new way of reaching out to your loved ones. You can't even get a Sim card without paying over the odds and without furnishing identity documents that you don't even have. Surveys say that connectivity is now one of the biggest concerns for refugees in the world, but what can you do about it when you have no real starting point, Andrew, that she's seen this happen to millions of people over the last few years. There's Rohingya refugees and flooded in their millions and to one of the many camps across the country focusing on Cox's bizarre one company w three engineers has been looking to use blockchain as a foundation layer to help connect refugees across Cox's bazaar and across the country without necessarily needing a telephone network, helping them to connect to the outside world just simply by networking their phones more closely together doing that. They've managed to create address the connectivity point that's so pressing for so many refugees. So it's a pleasure today to have and Reco here from w three engineers in Bangladesh to talk us through the mobile connectivity projects that they've been championing for years now. Where and when did the idea for the mobile connectivity come in?
Speaker 3:Well, and to be honest, the, as soon as we started company we found they intended was so expensive. That was the first key thing we, we, we got hit and then we, we were paying a lot of money got by Internet, but it's still, we a struggling to communicate back in our partner companies in Canada and also other parts of the world. The half of the office has to stop working because the conversation was going online and it's very bandwidth consumption and you know, tens. So to solve our own problem back in 2012 we started, you know, this, this concept of creating upgrade application that works peer to peer without interrupting the Internet. So within the office communication can go smoothly and at the same time the call could still go on and afterwards when it's, uh, the Rohingya refugees are coming to the country, we felt, you know, where the second week we have a very bigger problem to be solved. These people fleeing from mine, mark in fear of a genocide and a lot of their people that are getting killed every day and they do not have an identity and, and we, we should be doing something for them. We should be able to connect with them. So then we sat with our team and, and you know, re engineered this product and solutions and then we're still working on it.
Speaker 2:So essentially you have the, you have the beginnings of the technology before the roaring of crisis and that was just a convenient, if you like or a happy accident that you were able to apply the technology to this situation at hand.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. That's why we felt like the problem is taught at that from my own house and then it just spread. We found, you know, there are more than 6 billion people in the planet. We that that statue he researched online from different organization like UN ACR we've found is shocking. A record like 6 billion people across the world, not, not connected and unbanked and out of 25 million more than that is refugee or displaced. So those charges, records literally giving us an idea that we got to be doing something and then create a prototype for, for piloting and helping those people.
Speaker 2:What was the situation as you found it, as you said corpses bizarre is a major center for Rohingya refugees. What was the problem is that you found it when you were there in terms of the connectivity problems.
Speaker 4:Is that disconnected problem? The family is disconnected. They don't have any kind of information for the country or they're not getting any help for learning or education and you know what, they don't have it easy to way to buy a Sim card. So the connectivity or communication is a big problem over there.
Speaker 3:So they're missing their family members back home and I said no idea. They're like ten two 15 campuses for the cross. Cox's Bazar a district and somebody doesn't know where their brothers are or somebody doesn't know where their parents are and then no ways to contact.
Speaker 2:So you have refugees arriving into the number of camps with no identity, first of all, no idea where their family members are and ultimately no way of connecting to any, any kind of networks because of the fact that they can't get a Sim card because they have no id. So fairly a helpless situation I guess. And then where, where did you get to for the answer for that?
Speaker 4:We had to make one kind of solution where everybody should be connected with each other. No single point of failure should be allowed or no shutdown, no internet connectivity or no Internet. There should be one marketplace with a bill Neil economy. Everybody should be connected to each other.
Speaker 3:So for the, uh, UNICEF Innovation Fund, we, uh, we designed this product called telomeres and that's essentially a platform, allows peer to peer communication without what I show is explaining without the existing telephone infrastructure or a traditional wifi or internet connectivity,
Speaker 2:instead of using a mobile phone network, you have essentially connect to each other in the same style if you like as a, as a fire chat or one of the, um, kind of established mechanisms. But you guys go beyond that, right? You've taken, you've taken and have that base technology and run far ahead.
Speaker 3:Right. I'm glad that it would raise the question about five chats and then they, those are the traditional application that works differently as opposed to us working in, in this case, as we, I have discovered the problem from an inhouse. We, the first thing we discovered was the incentivization people doesn't want their phone to be used by others or that they don't want to be known in that connections until they get a reward. So for the refugee crisis we figured out, okay these people doesn't have the identity. So we created an identity layer by the use of Ethiopia blockchain and as soon as somebody joins in, the narrower it gets assigned and the wallet address plus the connectivity comes on top of that and an application layer where peer to peer transaction happens or the communication happens using the Bluetooth and Wifi and Wifi direct. And as well as the, the data buying and selling mechanism is in built within that. So anybody could buy data from other sellers within the network in a very affordable way. And in a traditional system where you know, if I buy a data for him and itself operator, our phone operator, they give you like gigabyte or a man and if I don't use the whole thing, the half of that is wasted. So with this, technology's no longer be the case. The refugees still expending money on buying air time or some time communicating with their parents and there's the Sim card. What they buy is in the off market and there's some time pay, like double and triple them. The actual cost or sometime they do not have the Internet connection because of the mountain area. They leave mostly. But with this peer to peer communication system, it should be pretty much covered the whole space. And then the system we build is it goes from one person to another person, another person until it is find the destination. Be Travis for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you moved from a situation where the help the situation where you have refugees coming in with no identity, no means of connecting to the world to a new situation where the the, there's no need for it. They have a baseline identity based on the theory and ID and they can connect to all the fans around them and then potentially even buy in data to be able to connect to the outside world as well. Absolutely. Right. So it's a huge transformation really. And all of that without necessarily having to have identity papers or as you said necessarily spending an awful lot of money paying over the odds first income.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So you've been building the solutions for a number of years. Where does, where does the actual blockchain DLT piece come in then as a, as a tool that you use?
Speaker 3:We have been had been building before this blockchain hype came in the world. Uh, one of our hackathon in the office we discovered we got be doing something for solving this id problem and then few alternate it. So there we could you use the IME I number as well as in conjunction with a phone number and then we figured out, okay if we are tying up with the phones or numbers then it's, we are tying up with, assuming the person has a sim card and assuming the person has a valid id. So that is actually ambiguous and contradictory to each other. So then we found, okay it makes sense because it's your allows us to do the idea and even without even being connected with the central system, because it's a decentralized system where we figured out okay this is the best way for us to go for it. And the blockchain picture is a, is ID generation and B is keeping the record of well how much data who owns. And also we have a plan of creating a marketplace where basically the p two p transaction will take place. So new[inaudible] system as well as the identity duration. It was badly needed for us to solve this problem. So without a blockchain solution we had a almost like a dead end to prevent this project successfully.
Speaker 2:Hmm. And I think it's fascinating that you were actually trying before blockchain came along, but as you said that you were hitting this ball around the identity piece, that, that the theory and ideas is so kind of conveniently result. And how are you actually managing the buying and selling of the data in the marketplace element?
Speaker 3:It's a phone app where you can take a picture, you posted there and then transaction will get recorded and IPFS the assets and everything will still be using the blockchain is not going to be any single point of, I know, I know central server or something. The token, which the person comes with application can be used to buy and sell those items in America is going to be completely peer to peer and there will be a central, uh, we, we will have number of servers basically cool. Settle down the payments in the, in the, in a, in an Edward. So for example, they tell me I'm node will not be running in the phone, so there needs to be a sober, so we chose Amazon cloud too, post those node and settled down the payments as soon as the transaction finishes in a secure way.
Speaker 2:So you're using a theory of tokens to be able to uh, support a marketplace for buying and selling data. So refugees can affectively transact in, in those tokens you did buying and selling. But presumably they can also start to use those tokens as, as essentially the fact that currency within the campus for payments or other services as well.
Speaker 3:Correct. Because it's an Erc 20 token that's pretty standard send by the community. So they couldn't put it much to be able to do it with the marketplace and people will be accepted because it's the Erc 20 so yes, to answer your question
Speaker 2:so they could pay for whatever it, for teaching for child care, for other things in terms of real wouldn't services if you like.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 5:I'm Bonnie Nelson and I hope you're enjoying this good stuff podcast. So far we've heard about the big picture and the reasons why block chain was a necessary part of the solution and we're going to go on now to hear about the practicalities of using blockchain and using the solution in the real world. Before we do though, one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast is to make sure that you have a chance to get involved. So please do reach out if you'd like to get in touch or involved in any way. Look us up on the value exchange.co/good star or friend us on Facebook or linkedin. Thanks.
Speaker 1:I'm back to the[inaudible] podcast.
Speaker 2:And what about the NGO side? So we've talked a lot about the, the, the benefit to the actual to the refugee NGO seem to be very interested in this as well. I think in terms of the, the management of the campaign information decimation that right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I'm glad that you asked this question. And then we just picked a number of NGOs and uh, what we found there is called struggled to distribute information from one location to another location. They headquarters Smith sometimes misses the, no, the survey report, like for example vaccination report, the announcement they want to do in the camp, if there is an emergency, how they will reach them. So we paid in a dashboard for the ref NGOs so that they could send a broadcast message to all the refugees, you know,
Speaker 2:with this by fence. And so how has that experience going in terms of what the, what the Ngos are looking for and then how they're building out. What experiences are you picking up as you go in terms of specific kind of case requirements that they have?
Speaker 3:Mostly the first thing we are prioritizing is the item they do regularly and inefficiently. So we found their announcement. They make, they use a traditional Mike to announce it and as you know the Mike cannot reach every corner, the cam or if there are like a multiple camps they cannot reach them at the same time. So we took that into account and creating the broadcasting solution. That dashboard essentially it helps them too. Broadcast messages they want to send at the same time. So and then there are a few more other things like food when the food next food law will be coming and distribute it at from which place and how they will be taking care of their own time. And a few things in regards to the educational part, the basic educational part and the beauty of becoming upgrade and not banded centric. We are also talking with them to be able to push out the video broadcasting messages. So if there is a video clip, you know the multiple lines of texts is worse than, and I can have five second video. So we are thinking of you know broadcasting video through this network. We're still too early. But that is something also we are considering to get it in this pub mass period.
Speaker 2:Well using traditional technology, if you like, plus lock chain, you're able to connect refugees to not only members in the camp but also people outside through buying and selling data. You're also able to provide the kind of information backbone for the camp in terms of announcements, but also as you said I suppose on the video side, education and so on and so forth. And then with the currency or the tokens, you're also able to create a marketplace for kind of goods and services within the camp. And then beyond.
Speaker 3:And also I will add another new use case we just recently discovered was, you know, the, the, the previously NGOs were giving away some small fund the money mostly to the women because they found the men are the one who doesn't use the fund for doing good for their families. Mostly women does. And then they, sometimes they reduce our these top giving away cash and they started giving away but they might not need that. Good. So to solve that problem we oppose, okay, what if the token become replace the existing fee at completely and, and the token can be used for. So if there is a donation coming up, so somebody from New York wants to donate something to revenue refugees, they could transact that token our ears wide open to the NGO and Ngo can equally distributed amongst the other people within the camp. And that way the fee at currency would disappear from that. And because it's a digital economy, there is a ledger and which ensures the money is being spent on that thing they were supposed to be expended and and things like that. There is also a possibility of integrating these smart contracts. So like for example, if you do x work you will get y token. So it's completely digital. So the corruption will completely go away within within the NGO and also the refugees, they're effectively replacing fear or kind of native cash currency with, with tokens and getting all the security benefits. They kind of, the accounting benefits of that is incredible. So I mean what are the biggest surprises you've been developing this for? For a number of years through the journey. What are the biggest surprises that have happened to you? Oh, well I would say that there were some blogs. One of that was a very major making the connection autonomous. Normally the way the mobile fund gets connected there is a traditional way. If you take an example, a Wifi router only acts as a master node or a house where everybody gets connected. But unlike this Mesh, you know, connection activity, we had to discover, okay, anybody can act as a house at the same time and as an act as a server and also integrating successfully the blockchain part of it I degeneration tied up with the traditional Ip replacement. So the normal traditional network works based on Ip addresses, but ours is designed in a way where it is security and id to address other node, uh, and send out the messages based on the university, UNICEF a family, you have your 12 month journey and then obviously the journey. Well beyond that, what does the future look like? Because from a business model perspective, this is going to become a revenue or revenue generating product in its own rights eventually. Right? This is a 12 month pilot and African woman. We will get a lot of market feedback, a lot of Ui, UX request and a lot of things. We will be fine tuning in the in the product and pathic which it will be ready for the rest of the world. So we will be announcing globally in from various locations to the merging market saying, Hey, hey newspaper company or hey is this contention company Jorge is the Ad Agency. She owns a platform that accused and reach those 6 billion people and give away a distributor advertisement, distribute your content and then that's going to cost too few tokens to essentially the market place in the community that you build. Not only becomes a place for of buying and selling data amongst users, but it also becomes a way of transacting and other goods and services. And then as you said, transacting in the use of connectivity to major advertisers and media. Yes. So what are the milestones that you set yourself in terms of connectivity and how fast you expect this to grow out. And we will be focusing only on 20 hubs at this point, but after the 12 month period we will, we will not set any limit of number of hubs. It will be work like a traditional Internet system where you are package, you send, you send a request, you send a message, it goes to the destination. That is the milestone we are setting by ourselves. So if I'm sending a message within a city, it should Travers the best shortest path and based to the destination and acknowledge me that the message has been sent successful within the next 12 months. It's a fascinating story to be able to see and to follow. And I think there'll be many of us who are going to be watching with great interest to see ultimately the marketplace and the refugees that you really touch every day. So thank you so much for inspiring us. Thank you so much as well and thanks to UNICEF Innovation Fund to which we are getting a platform. Quite sure that there'll be a lot of more a conversation down the road and the journey we are expecting could be fascinating. Absolutely. So I ensure rector you. Thank you very, very much and yeah, really appreciate your making the time today.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 5:I'm Bonnie Nelson and thanks for listening to this week's good start episode. Next week there'll be another amazing story about how blockchain is being used for good, and so make sure to join us. Then in the meantime, if you'd like to get involved, look us up on the value exchange.co/goodstart or on Linkedin or Facebook. Thanks and see you next week.