all right hi everyone I'm so grateful to
be up here so my name is Gregory
I'm here with Reece tow and we're going
to be talking about region network so
I'm gonna try to start on a pattern
level to talk about what it is that
we're up to because we're doing
something that I think is sort of a
unique and unusual at this moment use
case of blockchain and distributed
ledger technology so what we're up to is
nothing short of completely reversing
global climate change how are we going
to do that how are we going to do that
we're going to create a large ecological
data network and a token system that
incentivizes regeneration of Earth's
soils so you know I wanted to talk a
little bit I'm I'm a farmer I work with
farmers I spent my whole life working
with soil so I'm not a developer we have
some amazing talented developers on our
team but I sort of wanted to just ground
this whole conversation
everyone here depends on farmers a
hundred percent so who ate today alright
so there are 500 million small family
farmers that feed all of us every year
and they're also the poorest people on
the planet and they also happen to be
the only people who can save us from
climate change unfortunately
centralized compliance based systems
simply will not work and I think we
could all understand that in this room
so I'm going to show a really brief
video that frames the carbon cycle and
the potential of soil before we dive in
a little bit deeper into the data
mechanics of what we're up to if you're
like most people
you're probably feeling a little
hopeless about climate change and the
damage we've done to our planet well now
there's a new way to look at climate
change and how to deal with it that
might just turn that hopelessness into a
whole climate change as we know is all
about too much carbon in our atmosphere
but carbon is not our enemy
it's the building block of life
everything alive is made of it even us
the problem and the solution are simply
a matter of balance let's step back and
look at the five pools where carbon is
stored on planet earth starting about
500 million years ago when plants first
appeared on land carbon began to cycle
in an amazing balance between these
pools a balance that allowed for life as
we know it to evolve then one life that
would be us figured out how to extract
carbon from the fossil which was pretty
much a timeout zone for carbon we've
been burning it for energy putting into
play and disrupting that balance the way
we manage land and do agriculture is
moving even more carbon into the
atmosphere specifically we've moved
eight hundred and eighty billion tons of
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which
is heating up the planet and
destabilizing our climate the oceans
have absorbed a lot of this excess
carbon throwing off the oceans balance
resulting in ocean acidification and
accelerating a mass extinction of sea
life so in order to save life as we know
it of course we need to stop burning
fossil carbon the big question is where
do we put this excess carbon to get the
cycle back in balance the good news is
that the answer is literally right under
our feet it's the soil plants using
sunlight and water naturally perform
photosynthesis they pull carbon in from
the air and turn it into carbohydrates
sugars then they pumped some of these
sugars down through the roots to feed
microorganisms who use that carbon
build healthy soil voila carbon move the
plants pump it in and the soil stores it
nature's living technology is amazing
scientists have recently discovered that
applying a thin layer of compost can
help regenerate healthy soil setting up
an ongoing feedback loop that brings
more and more carbon into the soil each
year together with other regenerative
practices like not tilling the soil
planting trees and cover crops and
planned grazing we can build and retain
billions of tons of soil carbon this is
carbon farming this is regenerative
agriculture unlike more carbon in the
atmosphere
more carbon in the ground is good
furnace it makes healthy soil which is
nutrient rich and full of life and holds
way more water
this means more nutritious food and
crops that are more resilient in the
face of drought that's good news for
farmers families and everyone who eats
remember this the way we grow our food
fiber and fuel either puts carbon up
into our atmosphere or pulls it down
into the ground the regeneration of soil
is the task of our generation our health
the health of our soils and the health
of our planet are one in the same well I
don't know about you guys but that gets
me inspired every single time because
that's a big crazy problem and it turns
out it's actually not that hard to solve
the challenge is being able to verify
what's actually happening on a farm so
that we can support farmers and
incentivize them to be actively
sequestering carbon so I just wanted to
go through a couple numbers here to sort
of frame the bigger problem and
hopefully show how completely achievable
it is so the the world soils have 320
gigatonnes of carbon stoy storage
capacity we only need to sequester 128
gigatonnes over the next 20 years to
completely reverse global warming Wow
okay there's 500 million small farmers
so you know we need roughly a third of
those people to be participating on our
network in our program actively
regenerating soils so we've been working
on two core aspects of our protocol one
is proof of regeneration so that is the
ability through farm IOT sensors and
satellite protocols and drones and user
smart phone interaction to be able to
prove what's actually happening on any
given farm in a decentralized way that
is not owned by any central authority
and to creating a reverse mining
protocol that is the ability to mint
tokens by proving that you've done
something that's in the public good
which is sequestering carbon into your
soils so those are the two foundational
pieces of region network so we're going
to spend
sort of I'm going patterns to these
details here we're gonna spend a little
bit of time coming right up
with Rhys toe going through one of our
pilot projects which is actually
calibrating the proof of regeneration
protocol at this moment with real-time
sensor data from a farm in New Hampshire
we're actively working right now on some
of the scaling problems our network is
going to have to be sharded there's no
way around it and we also have to work a
lot on identity because you can't have
we actually have to have proof of
identity proof of location as a core
part of our our whole protocol so just
to sort of frame some of our technical
challenges we're looking at validation
of claim and outcome as a core part of
the protocol verification of location
identity the ability to validate data
authenticity and also verify data
integrity so I'm gonna hand it over to
restore here so that he can talk a
little bit about the role that streamer
is playing and helping us develop a
market for this highly valuable
ecological knowledge that drives the
incentive for farmers to be
participating this program thank you
very much Gregor it's great to be here
Grigory of course and his team are the
experts on regenerative agriculture
where streamer comes in is on the data
side they're the key aim is to verify if
the conditions are conducive to carbon
accumulation in the soil to answer that
question you need lots of data from
various sources and that's where we
assume can help
there's a number of things which can be
monitored on a farm taken together such
measurements give a pretty good
indication of soil health and
equilibrium and that's important because
the carbon sequestration is one of the
core functions in a healthy soil now
we've got lots of data in here I won't
go through that all just to mention some
of these low-frequency like satellite
images soil sampling some a higher
frequency like temperature measurements
numbers on electrical conductivity and
so forth but the thing is that you need
to combine data from many different
sources in here low cost sensor data are
important in the calibration of the low
frequency carbon sequestration models in
practice what you have to do is to
collect transmit and analyze all of the
data in real time that's the what we
have here is the data mechanics how it
works press dreamer it's in you start
with planting the standards in the soil
the that's typically done maybe not by
the farmer but by cannot specialized re
IOT companies next thing you do is the
every time well sensor course across
life they Center data data points as
JSON to streamer endpoint and then reach
Network subscribes to the data as it
arrives in here they analyze the data in
real time calibrate the models verify
the carbon sequestration what happens in
between is that the data automatically
kind of flows through the peer-to-peer
streamer network from source to
subscribers the nodes in the network are
incentivized by getting paid by data
token for their efforts
[Music]
moving on
each data point as it arrives is
time-stamped appended persisted in the
stream
kind of the user interface of the
streamer system the concept of three
makes it easy to later analyze the data
to historical play backs of the row
numbers and the analytics Thank You
Gregory
let's move on and quickly show you an
example of the data playback works on
the streamer platform here we run
through the sensor data from literally
until a few weeks ago on the farm in New
Hampshire the final points I'd like to
make is that the same data can be
valuable to many different audiences and
data consumers in this case of course
the region network is the prime user but
this value in the data doesn't stop
there apps companies can subscribe to
the data user services such as day to
day file management performance
monitoring yield optimization irrigation
harvest forecasting and so forth you can
even think if there's any kind of
financial people in the audience for
other uses like having real-time
information about the state of the crop
weather events which can be immensely
valuable for commodity traders in
storage companies with a thought let me
hand back over to Gregory for three to
recap thanks Risto so
we believe that what we're working on
here is creating a marketplace where
farmers own their own data and can sell
it at a premium to all of the people
around the world who need that data from
governments working on climate change
initiatives to people who want to anchor
supply chain transparency into their
relationships with customers to
commodities traders as rista was
speaking about but fundamentally the
beauty of the project is as those tokens
are used to access this data the price
of region tokens remains stable or goes
up which incentivizes farmers who are
the only people as I noted earlier who
can mint new tokens so the only way that
a new region token ever is going to come
into circulation after the initial token
generation event is by a farmer proving
that they've regenerated soil so all of
a sudden farmers are back where they
should be which is at the center of the
economic system as the people who are
providing the base layer of wealth for
everything else is taking place so we're
really excited about that we're really
excited to be moving forward with new
pilots in very challenging conditions
this is a photo of a farm in Ecuador
that we're about to be starting another
pilot on so working with cacao farmers
to measure the carbon cycle and carbon
sequestration dynamics in in their
ecosystem and I sort of just want to
leave everyone with an invitation
because you know what I've learned here
at DEFCON 3 which is my first Devcon
but what I also know from my work with
farmers all around the world it is all
about collaboration and the beauty of
this space is open source collaborative
approach to big engineering problems and
I know we have a whole stack of them so
we're looking forward to being members
of this community and continuing to work
on this amazing potential to have
blockchain
driven community empowered solutions
reverse climate change and many of the
other big problems facing humanity so
thank you all very much
[Applause]
[Music]