๐ This Week in Web3forGood
Spotlight: PlanetWatch
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What an interesting week it has been for Web3, particularly if you were able to make it to DC - more on that in the newsletter! This week, weโre kicking off our Climate Collective member spotlight series with a feature on PlanetWatch. Learn more below about the incredible & important work that they are doing with blockchain technology to make air quality data hyperlocal and decentralized.
Plus: your usual roundup of news, what weโre thinking about, opportunities, and more. Know an organization thatโs using #Web3ForGood that we should spotlight? Let us know!
P.S. Are you following @w3b3forgood on X (Twitter)? We know we havenโt tweeted much in the past, but we are now ๐.
Whatโs Inside
๐ฃ Latest News
๐ What Weโre Thinking About
๐ Opportunities & Events
๐ก On Our Radar
โจ And one more thing
๐ The Climate Collective Member Spotlight: PlanetWatch
โMy personal hope and vision for the future of how emerging tech could be used to make the world a better place is to empower people to take action on the issues that matter to them. By leveraging blockchain, IoT, and AI, we can create decentralized and transparent platforms that reward people for generating and sharing valuable data, such as air quality. This data can then be used to inform decision-making, raise awareness, and drive positive change at all levels of society.โ
โ Claudio Parrinello, CEO, PlanetWatch
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About PlanetWatch:
PlanetWatch decentralizes and incentivizes environmental monitoring by partnering with a state-of-the-art blockchain and with one of the leading research centers in the world to build the worldโs first immutable air quality ledger and to reward any contribution to the PlanetWatch network and ecosystem.
Their innovative approach to air quality monitoring leverages a new generation of fixed outdoor and indoor sensors, and even mobile units. This enables the direct participation of the population to rapidly deploy, on demand and at low cost, a dense surveillance network whose data can be released in real time.
Real World Impact:
PlanetWatchโs flagship indoor device, a small white desktop stand (pictured above), is for anyone to use in their workplaces and homes. Individuals can also use a smaller, portable version (pictured below). Notably, unlike most other devices that are able to read air quality, this specific sensor is made without chemical cartridges that need to be disposed of and replaced.
With these devices and PlanetWatchโs larger sensors, air quality is monitored in real time in places like hotels and schools. The data collected is then used to deliver actionable recommendations that can mitigate health risks such as viral infections. More so, since the air quality data collected from these devices is recorded on the Algorand blockchain, itโs globally accessible and immutable. Every piece of information is coded by time, date, and location; even a very technical person could never change it. This means that, even years later, itโs possible to know with certainty that the data is authentic, and air quality change over time can be accurately measured.
While there are other organizations that reward individuals for collecting and sharing data over the internet, PlanetWatchโs utilization of blockchain uniquely allows it to be used much faster on a decentralized, grassroots level.
For example, in a town in eastern Europe, community members suspected that a textile factory was polluting the air and negatively impacting their quality of life. In the past, the citizens of this town did not have access to tools that could measure and prove the factoryโs impact on local air quality, so, no action was taken. However, thanks to PlanetWatch, individuals were able to monitor the air around the factory with sensors and share the data over social media to garner support, which led to the eventual installation of air filters at the factory. In other words, with PlanetWatch, individuals are empowered to take action and spark positive change in and for their communities.
Potential Future Impact:
PlanetWatchโs vision is to make all air quality data accessible with a focus on hyperlocal data. Currently, the organization is deploying a worldwide sensor network that will improve monitoring systems in cities. Today, participating cities have 5โ7 air quality sensors owned by the government, with limited data owned by a single entity, but PlanetWatch wants to scale this to create a more comprehensive and locally accurate picture of air quality.
The goal is to have at least one stationary outdoor sensor per 700 meters (thatโs the space covered by each pixel in a PlanetWatch map). Watch this video to learn more about how the PlanetWatch map works. Following this trajectory, a city like Rome, where PlanetWatch has sensors now, would have 200+ individually-operated sensors in the city center, compared to the 5โ7 government-owned sensors that currently exist. Furthermore the group aims to deploy hundreds of lower cost and mobile sensors in the same area for cross verification. When this is achieved, the data collected will be both hyperlocal and dense.With all of these sensors reporting real-time data every five minutes, correlations between air quality and patterns like traffic, weather, events and timeframes can be understood. On a large scale, governments and other infrastructure builders can use this information for urban planning to adjust traffic flows and improve quality of life for pedestrians during peak foot-traffic times, such as evening restaurant dining hours, or even to minimize exposure to viral biological threats.
PlanetWatchโs greatest impact potential lies in its ability to empower individuals with its decentralized approach to data collection. When air quality sensors are owned by many different individuals and private businesses, as PlanetWatch enables, and the data they collect is recorded instantly on the blockchain, it will be virtually guaranteed that no one group will ever be able to manipulate the data. In this way, individuals and communities across the world will be able to demand greater accountability for environmental impacts and, thus, optimize their local areas for wellbeing.
Get involved:
[This feature is part of our ongoing โ๐ The Climate Collective Member Spotlightโ series. Web3ForGood is a Climate Collective Grant Recipient. We appreciate The Climate Collectiveโs partnership and support in connecting us with member organizations for this series. All opinions remain our own.]
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๐ What Weโre Thinking About
๐ Cryptoโs trip to DC in the words of Kevin Owocki. (Kevin Owocki)
๐ช Can Bitcoin replace home ownership dreams for new immigrants? (Bitcoin Magazine)
๐ฑ For voluntary carbon markets, the best way ahead is to strengthen the integrity of data and processes: here are some options. (RMI)
๐ฒ Mercy Corps Ventures pilots the blockchain to get cash transfers to communities ahead of climate shock. (AgFunder)
๐ The 2023 Global Crypto Adoption Index: Central & Southern Asia Are Leading the Way in Grassroots Crypto Adoption. (ChainAnalysis)
๐ The role of cryptocurrencies in sub-Saharan Africa. (Brookings)
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๐ Opportunities & Events:ย
Apply: Deadline for Mercy Corp Venture Climate Tech Facility is 15th November.
IRL Events
Attend: ETHMiami is taking place October 27-29.
Attend: The Africa Money and DeFi Summit is happening Oct 3-4 in Ghana.
Attend: FIL Vegas, the first major Filecoin community event in North America in 2023, is happening October 3-5 in Las Vegas.ย
Attend: All Tech Is Human's monthly Responsible Tech Mixer is happening October 9 in NYC.
Attend: Plan B Forum (which brings together world leaders, technologists, and entrepreneurs to discuss nation-state Bitcoin adoption, economics, financial freedom, and freedom of speech) is happening October 20-21 in Lugano.
Attend: LabWeek23, a decentralized conference by Protocol Labs Network, is happening November 13-17 in Istanbul.
Virtual Events
Attend: Good Tech Fest in partnership with Splunk is hosting Building Digital Resilience in the Social Sector is happening on October 4.
๐ก On Our Radar
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