Checkpoint 1

Presentation

Week 1: Impact Opportunity

Select your challenge.
Develop an agile & transparent network for connecting surplus foods & supplies to communities in need.
To create a decentralized system that collect excess food supplies from local resources and distributes these resources to local food insecure individuals.
Define the scope of problem
For our summer project, we are limiting the POC to a small number of local farmers with excess food supplies (two pick up dates TBD ) to be picked up by transportation volunteers who will transport food supplies to agreed upon drop off point .
Why is blockchain needed to solve this problem
A supply chain model has been determined to be the best way to initiate, track and deliver excess food supplies. The above model has many unknown individuals who do not need to form a relationship with the parties at the other end of the supply chain.
Blockchain enables a digitized, verifiable, decentralized technology that’s used to capture and verify transactions between multiple parties in a provable and permanent way.
Due to its decentralized nature, multiple stakeholders use the blockchain to efficiently record, report on and track verified interactions.
This makes it easier to track and manage the sourcing, storage, transfer and distribution of food donations.
- To connect donors with receipts
- Capture and verify the quantity and handover of food & supplies
- Track where food & supplies are located at any time
- Understand where food & supplies are sourced from and who the recipients are
What is the size of the market? What demographics will you serve? Which industries will you impact? Any concurrent trends?
For our POC we will limit the size of the volunteer pool and we will determine the best spot to deliver. Current discussion revolves around local food banks, shelters, and R.F Veterans connections. The industry we are attempting to impact is the Local Charity Giving by creating a system where unknown parties can easily on-board and contribute.
Who are the stakeholders involved? How are they thinking/feeling/acting currently?
Local Farmers with excess food are more than excited to be a part of the project. Transporters might prove a challenge The food insecure people who receive a donation should be handled with privacy and dignity and the system develop should reflect this.
What are the geopolitical, cultural-social-economic factors that must be taken into consideration? What are some nuances and complexities that must be addressed?
Some factors are SUSTAINABILITY, food spoilage , timing of transportation as well as dignified deliver system.
Potential for food spoilage.
Product liability associated with being a supplier of food.
Supply pipeline to get foods from Donor to Consumer must be efficient enough to avoid complexities 1 and 2.

<<ScottS>>

<<GaryT: Meeting of 6/12/19>> See end of document for suggested Next Steps, Risks, etc <<GaryT>>

<<GaryT A few words to help with defining the project>>

This project implements a blockchain social service solution that provides food daily to the population of veterans in the Princeton area who are unable to acquire daily meals. This solution matches donor organizations (farmers, restauranteurs, kitchens, etc.) with these needy veterans in the community, so that excess food supplies can be delivered to them instead of being discarded as daily food waste.

This blockchain solution can be used also for other social services by redefining the donors, recipients, and the transportation method. If transportation is available, this solution can be used despite the geographical location of the donors and recipients.

Implementation of this solution can provide an annual cost savings of US$420,00 (this is just an example - actual figures to be determined) to the Princeton community:

Population of Veterans Daily Food Cost per Vet   Total Daily Cost    Total Annual Cost
1000 US$35    US$35,000    US$420,000
Cost of providing this service to veterans    US$0.00    US$0.00
Total benefit to Princeton Community US$35,000    US$420,000

<<GaryT: Notes from 6/12 Meetup>>

The following teams were suggested - others should be added and appropriate team titles assigned (these are working names only). Drop those teams not required.

Project Idea Team. Works on developing and refining the project idea, clarifying scope, funding, project financials, exploring which activities are worth pursuing in the interest of project success, Definition of Done, etc.
Project Management/Governance Team: Tasks, deadlines, timeline management, risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies, next-steps, etc.
Development Team: Confirm permissioned v. permissionless blockchain. Determine whether Hyperleger Fabric solution. Setup development environment, design network, bootstrap channel, install tools & utilities, ledger setup, client application development, chaincode development, etc.
Communication/Documentation Team: Project documentation and internal/external communications. Wiki/Spaces structure, documentation guidance, etc.
Requirements & Testing Team: Work with Project Idea Team & Documentation Team to validate requirements/user stories. Test and certify the solution.

<<GaryT>>

<<GaryT: 6/12 Meetup Notes>>

To assist with zeroing-in on achievable scope, consider doing the following:

Donors: List suggested Donors (e.g., Farmers, Restaurants, Individuals, etc.). Rank Donors in order of greatest chance of collaboration for project success. Agree on final target Donor.
Consumers: List suggested Consumers (e.g., Veterans, Families, etc.). Rank Consumers in order of greatest chance of collaboration for project success. Agree on final target Consumer.
Location: Decide on a target location guided by decision on Donor and Consumer.
Organizations that may be able to assist with identification of Consumer and Location: Churches, Food Banks, Social Services. Target consumers may congregate in locations where social services providers are located.
Transporters: Same comments as above.

<<GaryT>>

<<GaryT: 6/12 Meeting>> A slide was presented at this meeting that answers this question. Add slide to this page - ensure it is expressed in a way that is easily understood by the target audience<<GaryT>>

<<GaryT>>Some complexities to be addressed are:

<<GaryT>> PROJECT RISKS

No experienced blockchain architects/developers were present at the 6/12/19 meeting. Must reach out to the other Meetup members, or external parties, to assist with building-out the solution. Will need participation of technicians who have implemented blockchain solutions before - time constraint does not allow for using this as a learning exercise.

<<GaryT>> SEQUENCE OF TRANSACTIONS IN WORKFLOW
This workflow is a basic workflow that assumes all participants are in agreement with regard to their roles and services, and that potential complexities will be ignored during this happy path workflow. This blockchain solution can be enhanced later to address these complexities and implement guards that can make the solution more robust.

This transaction workflow is not meant to be the recommended workflow. This is just a starting point to stimulate discussion about the correct number and sequence of transactions to make this an efficient workflow within project constraints.

TRANSACTIONS IN OUR WORKFLOW:
These explicit transactions will help to identify the implicit transactions and features to be supported by this blockchain application solution via business network APIs.

Identify an initial list of Consumers who will require a daily food supply. List will expand with additional Consumers.
Identify the location of the Consumers. Locations will expand with additional locations serviced.
Identify an initial list of Donors who will donate food daily. List will expand with additional Donors.
Identify the location of the Donors. Locations will expand with additional Donors.
Identify an initial list of Transporters - an initial list which will expand as additional Donors volunteer their services.
Identify the location of Transporters. Locations will expand with additional Donors.
Identify attributes of Consumers, Donors, Transporters that will help with identification and communication to ensure supply pipeline efficiency.
Donor provides notification that they have a food supply ready for pickup by Transporters for delivery to Consumers.
The Donor indicates the available quantity of food they are supplying.
Transporter monitors the blockchain to determine when food is available for pickup.
Transporter matches the Donor supply with specific Consumers (whose daily needs have not been filled) to whom they can deliver this food supply.
Transporter volunteers to pickup the available supplies and deliver to specific Consumers (criteria may be location proximity).
Transporter picks up the available food supply from the Donor, and enters the data on the blockchain.
The Donor's quantity of food supply available for transport is decremented.
Transporter delivers the available food supply to the Consumers.
Transporter records that they have provided this service, and enters the data on the blockchain.
The Consumer is checked-off as having had their daily needs filled.
If additional quantities of food is still available from this Donor, the Donor notification remains active else it is closed.
Application metrics are updated (e.g., quantify the amount of food delivered, the cost of delivered food, etc.) for analytics.
At the end of day, all pending transactions are closed to reset for a new day of deliveries.

<<GaryT>> SUGGESTED IMMEDIATE NEXT-STEPS FOR NEXT MEETUP

Lock-down scope.
Agree on Donor, Transporter, Consumer, assets to be transported, and business rules governing interactions amongst these entities.
Fill-in the the above Week-1 Checkpoint - Impact Opportunity proposal - move closer to full completion.
Establish Development Team - much to do here given that the solution is a working prototype. See Development Team structure & responsibilities above. Need to start now.
Assign members to agreed teams (see Define Teams - Structure above) and appoint group leaders. They can then help with next-steps.
Agree on process workflow, participants in business use case, runtime transaction processing flow

Checkpoint 1

Select your challenge.

Define the scope of problem

Why is blockchain needed to solve this problem

What is the size of the market? What demographics will you serve? Which industries will you impact? Any concurrent trends?

Who are the stakeholders involved? How are they thinking/feeling/acting currently?

What are the geopolitical, cultural-social-economic factors that must be taken into consideration? What are some nuances and complexities that must be addressed?