This is the first of a three article series about the companies featured at Blockchain Expo 2017 this past week in Silicon Valley!
Today, we're looking at 4 companies that are bringing powerful blockchain based solutions to existing industries.
doGood: Crowd-sourcing.
What stands out about doGood is they've taken crowd sourcing and crowd funding to new levels. It goes well beyond what you might think when you initially hear those terms, but this isn't yet another "Go Fund Me" clone.
That's because it aims to solve problems beyond people begging for money online. From smaller, personal ones, to businesses seeking solutions to hurtles on major projects.
In a nutshell, it works like this: The problem/challenge is shared in their online platform. Others post viable solutions and the community weighs in on the route to take via a points based system. A structure that could do anything from help someone determine the next car to buy - to corporations letting shareholders weigh in. They can even give more voting power based on how many shares the individual owns.
We spoke to the founder and CEO Adam Harriss, who previously worked in corporate strategy for HP, on his inspiration for the project "I thought, in order to solve these huge problems, what do we actually need to provide real solutions? Thinking back though my experience - you have to define the problem and define and scope the potential solutions. Once you've done that you can actually break down a large problem like climate change, into smaller and smaller pieces - until you get to something that is addressable".
But their boldest vision may be their escrow service which ties in to all of this. Where an ICO's funding can be held in escrow, and released to the ICO to use only after promises are completed, and the as community votes they receive the next round of funding. Harriss believes legitimate ICO's wouldn't fear this transparency saying investors are asking more often "Why would I invest in this black box?"
doGood's ICO presale begins December 5th, and can be found online at doGood.io
Map Platform: Global mapping.
The Mapping Aggregation Platform is a decentralized mapping protocol - creating a crowd sourced 3d map of the world.
The demand for pinpoint accurate world mapping is already growing at a rapid pace, as the augmented reality industry explodes and relies on this information.
While privately owned corporations are working on gathering similar data, they don't share it without a price. Using blockchain to keep data constantly updated MAPS aims to be the decentralized solution, where anyone can contribute, or access the data.
Map Platform's ICO begins December 5th, and can be found online at MapPlatform.com
Neuromation: Deep learning / AI.
What first caught my eye about Neuromation was their bold proposition to cryptocurrency miners: you may make more money giving your processing power to our project, than you do mining coins.
We spoke to Yuri Kundin, an adviser on the project says that's the goal long term but points out they are first to the market, saying "currently people are paying Google for $4 an hour for 4 GPUs, that's our key point for democratizing access to AI, we could offer this processing power for $1 or even 50 cents".
Neutomation also has a bold retail automation project - putting this deep learning power to use. Shelf project management could streamline how large retailers operate, with AI monitoring product supply on the floor "the system recognizes all the products on the shelf's, and how many our left, we can send a signal back to the wearhouse letting them know to restock" says Kundin.
Neuromation's ICO presale is live now and can be found online at Neuromation.io
TRNXNHUB: Transaction services.
The first solution they offer is one most who actually use cryptocurrency can see a benefit for. I have yet to meet anyone with their wallet address memorized, they call it AliasID - where you can register any word or phrase just like a domain name, then cryptocurrencies can be sent there.
We spoke to Matthew C James, founder and chairman of TRXNHUB, he said "currently public keys on blockchain are 40 characters in length and a random string of letters and numbers" he continued "with AliasID we can associate an e-mail address, phone number, or name to a public key".
They also have transaction protection for peer to peer sales, called 'Smart Contracts AI' where smart contracts tie into an escrow service "when UPS or someone delivers an order, it updates the smart contract and releases the funds" James said. Providing buyer/seller protection for online goods sales made in cryptocurrencies.
TRXNHUB expects to ICO mid 2018 and can be found online at Trxnhub.com
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Ross Davis (Editor in Chief), Harvest Hill, Drew Jackson, and Kevin Williams.
Silicon Valley News Desk
