Sustainable Urban Communities
Waterig
Off-grid blockchain-linked hubs producing clean water, food, and electricity
Our solution's stage of development:
ResearchOur solution:
Our Solution aims in Decentralizing Urban Water and Food Resources gradually by deploying an Incentive Network of Off-Grid Water & Renewable Energy Hub - WATERIG. The Network is backed by IoTs and Blockchain system that will facilitate exchange on surplus water, food produce and crowdfunded Hub micro-ownership.
Our pitch:
Our Solution is built surrounding the WATERIG hub that is designed to efficiently Harvest Renewable Energy and Drinking Water from surroundings.
Potential 1st Gen. Prototype, dimension: 3x3x4m *Citation pending
WATERIG harvest Renewable Energy from the Sun, Wind, Underground & Waste Heat. Based on needs, these energy can be fed into Water production, Water processing or powering nearby Vertical Food Farm/Green House Modules.
Water Production includes Off-Grid Atmospheric Water Capturing, Water purification from Grid, RainWater Collection and Grey Water treatment for irrigation purpose. This piece of hardware is an Official Competing Water capturing Solution in a renowned International Crowdsourcing competition.
Branches of Container-sized Vertical Farms and Waste Processor can be "plug-in" to 4 sides of WATERIG hub to acquire energy or water resources. Each Hub broadcasts water and food data onto a Blockchain system. These data are critical on predicting local water usage, monitoring water quality securely ahead of time without going through middleman.
WATERIG can be a stand-alone installation integrating in most urban environment due to its compact size. It can also be stacked or arranged in Cluster. When arrange in Cluster, it can be configured as a form of community space and activity ground or even evolved into a local market place for sustainable water and food products.
We plan to finance pilot sites via equity crowdfunding by issuing Crypto-tokens to our micro-investors. And more sites to be built through crowdfunding locally using the same method, allowing people in local community to co-own the facility. The Crypto-token that signify micro-ownership will be traded freely on a trading platform. We believe only by injecting Incentive into the local ecosystem is the most efficient way to ignite exponential growth.
The problem:
- Aging Water Grid Pipeline are expensive and slow to clean and repair. It deteriorate water quality that affect citizen health.
- Monopoly issue, health of population highly depending on only a single or a few water service providers, generate inefficiency in the water system.
- Polluted and over-mining water resources.
- Food going through multiple layers of middleman, often take days and increased price tag to reach end users.
Why our solution will solve the problem:
- The hardware solution is originally an official competing water capturing solution for a renowned international crowdsourcing competition. We had spent over 1 year on conceptualizing the design, and now we are in prototyping stage
- We had more than 3 years of experience on Blockchain applications development. One of our previous project involve successfully building a fully Operational Cryptocurrency Trading platform.
- We have business partner who focus on manufacturing Vertical Farming equipment, Vertical farming module can be easily developed with this resource.
- We have team member who have extensive experience in humanitarian mission in developing countries
Our target outcomes:
- More lower educated Participants will be involved in business and jobs in Water and Food Sustainability, such as Vertical Farm operators, WATERIG hub micro-owner, Water Token traders....etc
- Elderly or young people who lack mobility to travel to acquire clean water and food will benefit
- Cost of Drinking Water and Green Produce will drop as marketing efficiency kicks in
How we will measure our progress:
The populations we will benefit initially:
The regions we will benefit initially:
The technologies we employ:
Why our solution is unique:
Our solution involve a few piece of uniquely designed hardware, a blockchain network and a series of smartly placed incentive to bind people together to voluntarily participate in sustainability without the need for a highly educated or trained target population with initial awareness. It is unique in a way that this is not a humanitarian or save-the developing-world mission, but a project involves quick knowledge transfer and deployment time, and most of the remaining development and management are up to the locals, because eventually they own the solution and the benefit out of it.
Why our solution is human-centered:
The Proposed Solution will eventually reduce price on drinking water and green produce, which will benefit all relating end users and consumers. It will also increase job and business opportunities in the sustainability sector. Although there is possibility that micro-investor or crypto-trader might take good advantage of making money out of trading water-token or food-token, I believe there are measures to reduce the market influence of speculators' behavior. So in general, the solution will still benefit the target crowd.
How people will access our solution:
It is planned that the first batch of pilot sites will be financed by equity crowdfunding globally backed by micro-investors who believe in sustainability and also have strong confidence on the future of what the WATERIG crypto-token represent. The pilot sites will be cherry-picked with the consideration of whether the solution will have maximum positive impact to be shown in a shorter period of time. This is in the hope that these positive outcome could influence the next wave of adaptors to take on the crowdfunding ride and to establish their own facility.
Technology-Readiness Level:
4-5 (Prototyping)Our organization:
For-ProfitHow we will sustain our team financially:
Right now, our project is seed-funded by Angel Investors mainly for research and development of the first prototype. We are going to raise a second round of funding by the end of 2017 for building a full size actual hardware. We are planning to issue our own crypto-token in order to fund future advancement and to work on a few pilot site
The factors limiting our success:
- The still somewhat unpredictable R&D timeline
- A Full understanding the local expectation and stakeholder relationship of target pilot sites
- Supports from local officials or relating international entities
How long we have been working on our solution:
2 yearsHow long it will take to develop a pilot:
6-12 monthsHow long it will take to scale beyond our pilot:
6-12 monthsOur expected annual budget:
$200000
We're looking for partners in these fields:
Our current partners:
We currently have the following partners on board
- Part time basis Material Scientist
- Mechanical Engineer
- Blockchain Finance / Crypto-token expert
- Vertical Farming equipment manufacturer
- Construction materials consultant
- Most importantly, a couple Dreamers.
Solution Team
-
Patrick Suen Chief Executive Officer, Waterig
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Our Solution
Waterig