A lot of the world takes water without any consideration. And far of the world has so little water that it’s a matter of life and loss of life.
So how can we ship water from areas of surplus to areas of want? That is the mission of Atlantis, a challenge dedicated to fixing points stemming from local weather change, focusing totally on water. They usually’re attempting to crack this downside by utilizing blockchain.
Irthu Suresh is a speaker at this year’s Consensus festival in Austin, Texas, May 29-31.
Atlantis isn’t just theoretical. Throughout 50 villages within the area of Chikmagalur, India, Atlantis deployed a Web3 answer that incentivized individuals to successfully switch water from the Haves to the Have Nots. A intelligent system of “bounties” inspired villagers to carry out duties that enabled this new distribution. And the pilot program labored. “We’ve exchanged greater than 21,000 kiloliters of water,” says Irthu Suresh, CEO of Atlantis.
Giving a sneak preview of what he’ll share in Austin at Consensus, Suresh explains why Atlantis adopted blockchain, the challenges they needed to overcome for onboarding, and why he needs the world to know that Web3 isn’t just for buying and selling however that “we will use this to combat water issues, to combat poverty.”
Interview has been condensed and evenly edited for readability.Atlantis didn’t begin out as a blockchain group, however ultimately you included the tech. What led you to this?Irthu Suresh: We have been attempting to construct options for local weather change — primarily by means of water — as a Web2 firm, however a non-public entity attempting to construct for the commons was not likely hanging a chord. And we bumped into all types of challenges with present energy buildings, every little thing from rules to unregulated mafia in India. It’s very straightforward to deliver down an concept if it’s constructed by a non-public entity. All you want is a bunch of attorneys.
And that led us to assume, “How can me and my co-founder grow to be insignificant over time as this technique scales?” And that led us to have a look at decentralized distributed techniques. We figured that if this works, nobody ought to have the ability to deliver it down.
Then we realized that there have been individuals who have been prepared to reap extra water after which provide it into the community. This was creating extra swimming pools of surplus assets. And we have been like, “What if we might construct this complete system on blockchain?”
So what does that appear to be precisely?
In most elements of the world, issues like water are closely regulated. And you’ve got these centralized grids. However as cities and areas broaden, usually these centralized grids wrestle to catch up.
However India is a superb instance of being constructed, traditionally, on decentralized communities. You have got small pockets of villages taking good care of their wants. It is hyper-local. So for us, it was a no brainer to deliver some type of idea that solves for useful resource allocation issues.
There are some elements the place water is plentiful, and no one cares about it. And there are different locations the place entry to water is life and loss of life. So for the pilot, after we partnered with Mercy Corps Ventures, we selected a particular location in India the place on one aspect of this hill there’s an abundance of water, and on the opposite aspect of the hill there’s a drought. And the way might individuals on this area trade this extra water? How might we create the infrastructure domestically itself? So for our pilot program in Chikmagalur — a rural area with 50 villages — we began with individuals in numerous water stress zone.
Fascinating. What did your system do?
First we had individuals domestically volunteer to unfold consciousness, then we had native individuals signal as much as grow to be water harvesters. As soon as we had these harvesters and there was a rain that was captured, there was a possibility for it to be exchanged.
How does blockchain match into this?
We constructed the product on a cellular native app. On this app, all people might create a profile, join, and first point out what their talent is. And based mostly on the talent, we begin supplying you with duties. And these duties are just about to construct up this peer-to-peer water community.
You possibly can participate in surveying, you might participate in water pattern testing, you might join as somebody who needs to unfold consciousness by means of workshops, or you might grow to be a harvester. All of those duties are gamified; we name them bounties. Individuals join after which they do the required steps which might be required, after which they get incentivized. We knew this primary required a distributed ledger that’s tamper-proof, and we knew that blockchain is helpful for that.
Wonderful. Are you able to quantify the influence to this point?
Yeah. We’ve exchanged greater than 21,000 kiloliters of water. The community has over 3,000 individuals and it is protecting 50 villages. Out of the three,000, predominantly most are customers who’re coming into the community to entry water. However we’ve nearly 150 harvesters within the community. After which we’ve a bunch of surveyors and validators.
What’s a validator on this context?
Let’s say you plug into the community and say, “Hey, I am a harvester.” Then we put out a bounty for somebody within the locality to grow to be a validator, who goes to your house and simply validates that, “Hey, these guys have the infrastructure for it.” So what occurs, in essence, is we’re making a bunch of those native inexperienced jobs. And all of those totally different duties are gamified utilizing our bounty system.
What issues did you run into?
One was off-ramping. Particularly in India, it is robust to off-ramp, as a result of the rules are nonetheless in a grey space.
After which ranging from the primary MVP we designed, on the very onset of onboarding, each time we requested individuals to hook up with a pockets, that did not work. As a result of individuals have been like, “What’s a pockets?” And I obtained an absolute education on UI and UX. We needed to actually determine when is the appropriate place to introduce blockchain or the Web3 terminologies.
And we needed to take further steps to coach individuals about it. As a result of individuals are like, ”Oh, it is crypto. Meaning it is a rip-off.” And we’re like, “No, no, maintain on!” Proper? Like, there’s a lot extra to it!
What tokens are you utilizing to drive the mechanics?
We do have an inside token, which we’ll sometime launch. In the course of the pilot we actively used it. However seeing how the Web3 market works, we’re robust believers that until we hit a robust product-market match, launching a token would not make sense for us.
So we’ve built-in a mechanism by which totally different tokens might be introduced into the platform. If somebody needs to fund a water challenge in Africa utilizing Solana they’ll, whereas if any individual needs to do a water challenge in Vietnam utilizing Optimism, they’re ready to do this. We actually labored on the interoperability facet of it as a result of local weather change doesn’t care which chain you’re on.
Effectively mentioned. Final query: What are you most wanting ahead to at Consensus?
So, one of many greatest lifelines for our challenge has been Bitcoin. And I do know that Consensus is a superb place to go and meet individuals who have pioneered a few of these applied sciences we’re utilizing immediately.
I am hoping that we’re capable of come and discuss in regards to the issues that we’ve been doing with blockchain, which isn’t essentially simply DeFi buying and selling. We actually need individuals to know that, “Hey, we will use this to combat water issues, to combat poverty.” The concept of distributed ledgers is tremendous highly effective. Extra individuals must know that there is precise examples of this being performed out.
Nice sentiment. Congrats on what you’ve constructed and see you in Austin.