Blockchain is being employed in a range of applications and disrupting several industries. We got in touch with Luis Gelado Crespo, CEO and Co-Founder of GeoDB to learn how they employed Blockchain to build a peer-to-peer big data-sharing platform.
A transcript of the interview with deep insights into data-sharing platforms built using Blockchain:
What is GeoDB? How did this come into being?
GeoDB is a decentralized peer-to-peer big data sharing ecosystem, which rewards users for the data they generate. The heart of the GeoDB ecosystem is a data marketplace that connects sellers and buyers in an efficient, secure, fast and direct way, with the goal of serving the 300b$ worldwide market current demand.
Companies can purchase data from all over the world that has been generated by GeoDB users. The users who are the data sellers get rewarded by receiving GeoDB Coins ($GEO).
During our past experience in our previous venture of Wave Location Technology, we have been generating a lot of users data. Very often big companies were coming to us and asking to buy data from our users. We wanted to sell this data, but we couldn’t. We didn’t have the convenient tools to structure the data in the way that private information is eliminated.
And the data buyers were really struggling to find the data they need. It made us realize how big are the problems, how inefficient were the solutions and the idea of GeoDB came up.
How is it different from data-management and data-sharing solutions? What are some use-cases of GeoDB?
We are dealing with data management mostly only on the side of GeoDB allowing users to have full control over their data. As for our clients, we do not involve much into their data management and that’s an advantage of working with us for them. GeoDB gets already anonymized data from the users, which are connected to GeoDB though the partner Apps.
We connect to those apps through SDK and capture only the user’s behaviour data without “touching” the private data. All the data transferred from the app to the GeoDB ecosystem is processes through IOTA blockchain protocol and users can be sure that none of their private information is collected. We also have an automated users reward mechanism for the shared data.
We have recently made a new Medium post where we described in details how our reward system works. It is available here https://medium.com/@GeoDataBlock/geodbs-reward-system-the-why-and-how-58b25d98112d
To conclude, the ability to automatically stream data from users in a compliant way and rewarding both – the users and the app for the data they share is what makes us different from traditional data sharing solutions.
And here is the example of a use case. Data from partners like Wave Application, Sisters, GeoCash and other connected apps has been streamed to GeoDB.
In GeoDB Marketplace potential data buyers can see specifically which data, from which regions and in what volume has been generated.
Imagine, there is a retail chain which decided to open a new point of sale for its business in London. Once they go to GeoDB, they will be able to purchase the necessary data of their potential customers (e x how much certain social group spends on a specific product within a certain area). Data is always in the same format and if needed beside raw data the buyer will be able to apply analytical tools from third party solutions listed in GeoDB AppStore. It means that even if you are not a data expert, with GeoDB you will be able to make data-driven business decisions with several clicks.
What are the inefficiencies within the current data-sharing platforms? How does GeoDB do away with intermediaries?
The main problems of current big data market solutions are:
1. Lack of automatization of current data-sharing platforms results in long, inefficient and expensive deals.
2. Data privacy. As a result less than 5% of data is being exploited. It’s just because the current centralized system with a lot of intermediaries, no transparency and no control over the data doesn’t work.
Blockchain is the perfect solution of it because it allows executing business models as GeoDB has in a decentralized environment with no intermediaries.
In our opinion, traditional raw data brokers will disappear from the market. In case of GeoDB users have full control over their data, they know where they sell it, they know that they are going to be rewarded for this and they can verify through blockchain that their private data has not been used. On the other hand, the data buyers have direct data flow from a user, they see on the blockchain from which app this data is coming from and most important is that our system is fully automated and friendly to use.
How do you see the Data-Sharing and Management Industry being revolutionized with Blockchain?
Blockchain is definitely a big help to the whole industry as it helps in decentralization or in setting up peer-to-peer relationships in data exchange processes. It makes it possible to exchange data in a way where only 2 parties interested in that agree to do so, and no intermediaries in the form of corporates or data brokers own your data. It also helps the data exchange process to be more privacy regulations compliant.
Another aspect is trust between parties and transparency. If I am a data buyer, I want to make sure where this data originally is coming from or what is the real timestamp of it. Combining those factors above we have a peer-to-peer automated, compliant, reliable and trustable data exchange ecosystem, which could not exist within the centralized systems.
What are you offering within Location Management? Does it have applications for Geo-Targeted Advertisements?
We are not dealing much with location management directly. What we always do is capturing location on top of other data being shared by the user. It might sound simple, but today you often buy a certain data of consumer behaviour like how people spend, etc, and you don’t know where did the transaction happen. There are dozens of use cases where location together with another type of data can be applied. It can be a retail products or services company, an advertisement industry, travel, finance and many others.
Anything else you would like to add about GeoDB or your future roadmap?
The main net of GeoDB and v1.0 of our marketplace is expected to be launched in November 2020. Besides working on the product development part, we are growing a lot our community, regularly hold different events for them (our test app GeoCash has already more than 100.000 downloads), bringing new partnerships with data buying and data selling companies.
And soon we are launching special Defi investment tools for our community where you will be able not only to buy GEOs at a special price but also apply different instruments to get returns on your investment.
