#Goodstart
#Goodstart
Blockchain and Vaccines: Statwig
Vaccines touch everyone across the world: from the poorest to the richest countries.
If one in every four vaccines is expired before it is used (excluding the numbers of fake goods), we are all exposed to the cost and the health impacts of this waste. We're either suffering from diseases that are completely preventable - or we're paying for a massive over-supply of drugs to make up the difference.
In this episode, Sid from Statwig explains how he is using blockchain to transform the supply chain for vaccines. Everyone wins when there is more efficiency and more transparency - and blockchain is helping to make that change.
Welcome to the good podcast. I'm Bonnie Nelson with another amazing story of how blockchain is being used to change people's lives. 25% of vaccines are wasted every year. So that means that one in every four children as possibly receiving a dad or an expired vaccine, next time they go to the vaccination center. Imagine the global impact of that. When UNICEF procures about 4 billion vaccines every year, sid at that week has been using blockchain to cut that waste, bringing transparency and trust to the whole life cycle of vaccines, hopefully trying to cut waste, identify failures in the supply chain and make sure that everyone wins from manufacturers to distributors and most importantly to the end children that receive the vaccines. It's the most perfect combination of big data and blockchain. So it's really exciting to be able to talk to them about this. So sit, it's a pleasure to have you on the good start podcast and thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you[inaudible]. It's a really pleasure on my side as well.
Speaker 1:Maybe we can just start with where you are focusing and why.
Speaker 2:I didn't start my career in the supply chain space. In fact, it started on the technology side with investment banking and the product development both here in India and a in the silicone valley. In 2016 I decided to move back to India from the U s look for interesting problems that I can solve with my background.
Speaker 1:How did you settle on the vaccines world? That
Speaker 2:my initial journey didn't start with that scene, but it was around the steel manufacturing, so I was working with this company which was having lots of issues in the supply chain. They were manufacturing products. There will be used for constructing shopping malls and bridges and things like that, but one of the very common problems they had is they usually ship incorrect shipments, incorrect parks, and they had no mechanism of tracking this real times. They would only know two complaints from the customers, so it was very bad for their reputation. So that's how I came across the supply chain issues. And I came across the failures of vaccines, especially when we were working in the sustainability projects, rural India, we were staggered. The amount of wastage in vaccines, it's shocking. Actually nearly 25 to 30 person of vaccines go to waste. This is a very critical problem to solve. So vaccines are important for children and a lot of children don't even get the vaccinated because of the scarcity with the vaccines. And, uh, we thought behave, we can solve this problem and identifying these failures and prevent them. That would tell a big socio economical issue.
Speaker 1:So that means that one in every four children or people who are being vaccinated are being vaccinated basically out of date or useless vaccines.
Speaker 2:People are aware that there are going to be failures. So the way they do it is by trying to provide in sublets, right? They know that one out of four vaccines is going to get spiraled. So they're going to try to send more vaccines,
Speaker 1:right? Either you have one in four samples spoils or you have a 25 to 40% over supply of vaccines, which comes at presumably an enormous cost to the provider of the vaccine.
Speaker 2:Huge, huge costs. For example, UNICEF procures 4 billion doses of 4 billion doses of vaccines. It's a huge number. Imagine 25% of it. So it's expensive.
Speaker 1:Presumably globalization is having an impact on this in terms of maybe driving those numbers up rather than down. Is that fair?
Speaker 2:Exactly. So globalization is making things very interesting, but at the same time it's also making it very complex and the supply chains are already fragmented and it's making them more pregnant than all this is driving in efficiencies. People are basically more focused on getting products from point a to point B, and I'm less worried about the wastage that happened during that journey.
Speaker 1:So essentially you've got say$1 billion of vaccines kind of going in the bin or spoiling every year in probably hundreds of billions of dollars of food in the same direction. Start weeks come in to change that ultimately. So what's your kind of mission
Speaker 2:[inaudible] have been tracking products for ages. Like how do we do that? If the product has not raised DHL, DHL lept up product at your doorstep, how do you still keep tracking it? Because the product might be safe and when it was with uh, with the distribution company, but after it has reached people are leapt at the customer's site, they're still good chances that it can be spoiled. So, but we are trying to do is trying to create decentralization in this whole ecosystem, how you track things and how you create the visibility. Let's all collectively track this products and cleared a common system for us to share that information with each other. Other than I going to someone and ask for information. We are all part of an ecosystem where we can access that information in real time on a, on a product basis. Let's do or own philosophy that we are trying to build into the supply chain. Everyone has a value proposition for them to solve this problem. Right? I have been distributed, is it saving money by doing the failures in consumers? It's improved product quality or manufacturers visibility into their system. There's different needs for different people, but collectively they are plugging together to prevent these failures in the supply chain.
Speaker 1:So if I understand you right, the information is there already in terms of everyone tracking their own particular parts of it, but aim is to be able to come in and a backbone to that as you set a foundation layer where the information that the parties one two, three, four, five or we'll have becomes common information and therefore the supply chain becomes more transparent and therefore easier to manage.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You're absolutely right. So the data is already there. There's enormous amount of information collected at each stage, but it's all going into silos, right? So data systems don't talk to each other. So there's no point in collecting this data because you only get like these small pockets of view of the where the product is and what condition it is. And so the data is there, but it's kind of useless. You locked away in that organizational silo.
Speaker 1:And so in Kochi terms then what does the solution that your rolling out look like? I mean, how does it manifest itself on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:So what we do is provide dashboards which provide extended visibility into the supply chain on where the product is, what condition it is. And so, and they use that level. That's what they see. They see dashboards which provides them information at a product level where the product has been, what condition it was it stored and distribution.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you're really taking a whole range of data that exists or has existed for a while, as you said anyway. But now publishing that, integrating it into common visibility.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. Start it right at, uh, at the manufacturer level that the serial numbers are printed. So the way we identify products is based on their serial numbers are Qr code, which would help us track those products and link all the data at each level of its journey to that particular unique identifier
Speaker 1:to, to give an example, and I mean thinking aloud, presumably you're talking about in the vaccine case, a distribution center for vaccine somewhere. You're in India. So let's say somewhere in India would be able to receive the vaccines but be able to see what temperature they'd been stored since they were shipped from the manufacturer and therefore know whether or not the products are a spoiled or good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Checking is as, as tech before is not new. Right? So the mechanism that previously used his data loggers tracking the temperature outages means that there is a sensor in place in the package which would turn red when there is a temporary failure. So when the product finally arrives a warehouse, they open up the package, look at the sensor and see the red light on the data logger. They say, Hey, I mean this has gone through failure so we'll just throw this away because it's probably useless, right? That's the current process. But what we are doing is augmenting that with the data. So we're saying that, hey, you received a package, but we can also tell you when the failure happened, whether there has been failures at that particular location previously, why our product's failing at a particular location. Is there something that we can do? Is it because then the distributors delivering the package but leaving it in outside the sun because the warehouses log, let's say from two one to do for lunch break or something like that.
Speaker 1:So in the old world was you said basically a box of vaccines would arrive and the only thing you'd know, it was binary. It was either a spoiled or good, arguably many people along the chain would have known where the product was, but not necessarily all of them would have known the state that the product was in. In the new world. You're saying that the entire supply chain becomes transparent and if somebody is leaving 100,000 boxes out in the sun every day and consistently ruining and spoiling, you know, billion dollars of goods that you know, everyone in the supply chain would be able to actually focus on that and be able to do something about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And it also improves accountability. Previously if there is a failure, everyone points fingers at each other and saying that, hey, everything on my side was good, our trucks were air condition or warehouses where air conditioning is not my body. I have to go and talk to someone else. Now by using immutable records on blockchain, we record those temperature alert so that we have a proof of loss. We can basically use to identify where the loss happened. So that also improves accountability in the rail system.
Speaker 1:And so you mentioned block chain. Presumably this has been an issue that people have been trying to solve for before given the sons involved. You mentioned the immutability point, but what is it overall about not chain that made it essential for you as the foundation? What is it that it solves for that was impossible to solve for previously?
Speaker 2:If we didn't have as solution like block chain, what could be the alternative one would be everyone collects data so that they have to talk to each other to identify where the failures are happening. There's a lot of collaboration that is needed between these stakeholders. Another alternative is there will be a service provider who would come and say, hey, I will collect all the data from you guys. I will store it in my systems. When our youth, there is an issue, you come to me and I'll provide you the data. So does a completely different set of challenges with both, both approaches on the first one where people need to collaborate to share data and talk to each other. It requires about up collaboration, which doesn't really happen and put in supply chain because these are competing providers. Sometimes it's very fragmented market, it's not their core core business. Right? So that went on to be in Walden in building tools which share data. On the second hand, they don't want to give their data to someone else, right? So and create another Google or Facebook where they control their entire supply chain information and the basically get logged in with that particular vendor. So that's where I think block chain provides an alternative. So they're looking at an decentralized system. So there's no one is controlling the data, but it's also distributed so they can all contribute to the platform by sharing data. And as one of the other things, which is also important is the immutability of it. One single stakeholder con to manipulate all the data and tamper with it. So these different characteristics, a blockchain basically solve some of their existing challenges. It's basically an alternate to, I'm not saying that it's the only solution. So the solutions that I mentioned previously also exist, but this provides a better alternative
Speaker 1:instead of it needing to be provided ultimately by a single organization or institution, if you like. And all the benefits and costs of that brings with it. It's a distributed platform that that doesn't need an institutional level of trust because ultimately you can't, you can't mess with the, the data anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it can grow organically as well. Right? So a manufacturer can have 10 different distributors, right? If a new distributor wants to use the same platform, they can easily do. So
Speaker 1:I'm Bonnie Nelson and I hope you're enjoying this good stock podcast. So far we've heard about the big picture and the reasons why blockchain 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/goodstart or friend us on Facebook or linkedin. Thanks. And back to the podcast. And so where are you with the project then in terms of rolling out?
Speaker 2:Well, I'd first to buy, let's start did in 2000 early 2017 tracking fish from Austria under Pradesh, which is on the eastern coast of India to countries like Singapore and Dubai. So that was a very successful project and he helped save a lot of wastage in the, in the middle of 2018 what we decided to do this heavy guns carrier by doing projects. So what we decided at that point is to productize what we do. So we said, hey, 80% of this is something that we do from project to project, right? So we took that 80% and let's create a product that they can deploy more easily and efficiently. That's when we got even interest from organizations like UNICEF. There have joined us in the efforts,
Speaker 1:oh, am I right that you saved about 400,000 pounds of fish per month on the example that you first worked on?
Speaker 2:That's right, and it wasn't ready. Sexist voted project that God does a lot of attention as well to our object to is to provide data. The applications could be built by us or the customer can build their own applications as well. So we can use that data to say that whenever there's a temperature alert, we'll send you notifications to your phone. So maybe you can take some action, but there could be a lot more applications as well. For example, this is from a project in us. The insurance companies were very interested in the data because today for them to understand where the failure happened, to process a claim is very difficult, right? You have to send out an investigator to find out where the failure happened and get the data there, the data and process the plane, which is very expensive for them instead of the data is already available. So they can build simple applications to leverage that data to simplify claims so they can automatically process team because they know where the failure happened. It happened and also get better risk data so they understand. Yeah, what's the risk with this particular supply chain, right. So that they can do in their policies in a better way. So the applications are enormous. With UNICEF, we are putting a lot of our work on open source so that people can build up.
Speaker 1:And do you find it in the vaccine space? I mean, do you find that there is enough information across the supply chain or do you find that when you come to actually integrate all of the dates on that there are gaps that you need to be filling? Or do you find that it's just a question of assembling the data that's already there?
Speaker 2:One of the, I would say challenges is how do we get the data from, even if it already exists, because we are talking about different systems and are being done on paper and some of the health centers and places like that. Although we, it's easy to say that heavy in we gather data and the story on a distributed ledger, getting that information itself is a big challenge. So instead of someone entering the data, how do they collect that data automatically using sensors or any other tools?
Speaker 1:So one of the points that you've got to work on then is making sure there's more data available. Presumably there's also an element of getting people to play properly together. You mentioned you know the challenges of competition and the supply chain. How do you force people ultimately to divulge this information and and to, to be able to work together or be it through you?
Speaker 2:Everyone gets a different value out of that using the system or using the platform. So there's manufacturers, this distributor in most of the cases come organizations like UNICEF are a different governments state governments, right? So it could be as a department of India, they're the other ones who procure those vaccines from the distributors, and then they're distributed to the different health centers, which might or might not be under under the government. So they could be a different organization altogether, which would then deliver it to the child. So there's a different people in involved, but interestingly, all of them have different value that they can extract out of the system. For example, at the manufacturer level, they create the product and they hand it over to distributors. They don't care if there is a failure of flaxseed and somewhere along the line, I mean they might care, but in reality it would mean that they will be able to sell more vaccines. If more fail, they can sell more. But the bigger value for them is save someone. A child was given than expired vaccines and the child gets sick. The first person who would get the blame for it. The brand that has the name on the vial of vaccines are in there is a fake vaccine, which is a common occurrence these days. People are basically replacing real vaccines are just introducing feedback since into their ecosystem so they look like they came from a manufacturing company, but they just contain some sugar water or something at the end of the day, so to reputational damage for the manufacturer. So they need to have more visibility on where the products are that they're safe or not. The second interest is eman and capacity planning as well as the biggest challenge for any manufacturer. Right. How do I predict demand so that I can manufacture exact amount of products without having extra costs and inefficiencies into the system by having visibility data and now I know exactly how many of my products are at the health center level, at the distributor level, at a warehouse level, so that I can plan my manufacturing in a better way. On the other hand, distributors, for them it's very simple. It's expensive to distribute the product to store it and distribute it. So if I can reduce the cost of distribution, that's a huge advantage for me. Right. The other thing is our distributors, they have to negotiate the price with manufacturers. Every time they buy a product, they have to negotiate the price. Now they have the data to negotiate a better price. That's also a big benefit for them. So that's a different incentives for different people.
Speaker 1:And so these are very acute problems, you know, in terms of people being able to protect their reputation for capacity and then on the distribution side to be able to reduce the costs of spoilage. Do you have a sense yet of the quantum of the impact that using block chain or nick on this, I mean, how big an impact do you think this could make?
Speaker 2:It's going to be a huge him, but even in terms of vaccines, so even if he can see a 5% that's still a 202 I 100 million doses of vaccines. These are products which more than very high volume, it's a volume play. We can improve it by small percentages. We can be a huge impact.
Speaker 1:How much is the data integration and obstacle to scale each time you come to a new distributor or manufacturer and their proprietary data source, you presume you have to work with that. How were you able to achieve the scale that we need to to get to the 5% 10% savings?
Speaker 2:So luckily there's only very few systems that you will supply and with these different players, there's hundreds and thousands of distributors, but they all use something very similar when it, when you actually do it for the first 10 customers, you probably don't have to do it again at all because you're covered almost all the combinations. So innovate, it feels like a big, big problem, but it's not in the long run. Even we were thinking that it would be, it would not be scalable when we started the project, but as we started working on these projects, we realize that there's not too many different types of system that they really use.
Speaker 1:I'm just totally implementation point. I think you've had the opportunity to starts at the top of the pyramids by having the supports of UNICEF, the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well. I think to be able to say, okay, well look your field smut paymasters for the supply chain, uh, forcing your solution down on the supply chain. Presumably that gets a lot easier in terms of rollout and getting people's play well together.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, as a startup it is very hard for us to push a new solution in this traditional industry. So by having a support of a big organization like UNICEF, it becomes very easy to get their suppliers who are all the Pharma companies on board. And also the governments at different countries are more, more open to participating as well. So having a big bear who controls a big market share makes it really easy in getting others engaged in the product. Right.
Speaker 1:So she tried to do this 10 15 years ago. You could have been a single organization with your own database and plugged into the small number of systems that are used in the industry. To track this, but ultimately you'd have ended up with probably patchy data, possible trust issues in terms of the fact that it's all sitting in your, in your own private world. Whereas now with the work that you're doing, you're able to fill in the patches of the data and ultimately collect all the data to a point where it becomes open source and accessible to all so that the byproduct doesn't just sit on some of these private databases. It's global consumption if you like, and therefore much more accessible to distributors, to manufacturers, to insurance companies and so on, so forth. Absolutely. Yeah, that's exactly right. And therefore, by, by filling in the patches and by making it available and just essentially getting everyone to talk to each other, I guess, or being, getting everyone to see each other's data, you can make an impact on that billion dollars also have wastage or oversupply that happens in the vaccine world and then multiples of that in the food world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Brilliant. And so last question then,
Speaker 1:how do you see the next few years playing out for stuff?
Speaker 2:Lot of solutions that you see in the market, especially in the blockchain space, there's a lot of skepticism and themselves, whether this kid that they can capture data for millions of products or billions of products, they can do that securely, that, that they can capture that data without failing. So that's where our focus is this year to build that scalable product. 2 billion. So CDO numbers, right?
Speaker 1:So really focusing very, very much on that billion dollars of vaccine overspend issue, like and see how much impact you can make on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. So that would give us a lot of metrics into the impact that we can create.
Speaker 1:That sounds like you've got a busy time ahead of you. And I think for me the most important thing is if you could make sure that you know that one in four people that gets a sport vaccine can be reduced down to one in five or down to one and 10 through bringing transparency and immutability. It's a, it's an incredible step forward. So best of luck with it, and I really, really look forward to hearing how you get on. Thank you, bunny. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And 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.
Speaker 3:Okay.