Climate Positive DePIN - Bangkok 2024

[Music] hi um I'm David I'm the co-founder and chief scientist of gain forest. Earth and so we are a design nonprofit that has been operating in the space for the last two years we have 28 communities around the world that we support um using a concept called conservation data income where we pay communities for collecting nature data um we pay 1 cent per minute of audio M recording I have the audio M here so you can see how this looks like we also pay 5 cents per megabyte of drone images and we work with uh indigenous people in the Amazon U mang grth conservation projects in Kenya and also restoration projects in the Philippines and also we just started with one project in changai here close by where we basically support the local community to also measure their biodiversity uh hi uh my name is Al the founder of the arquen uh so we are the the dipping we call this the dipping energy project and we uh using the dping model to motivate the global Community to unboarding their residential you know the renewable energy resources with starting from the rooftop solar panel so the can M uh you know the uning their solar panel and uploading their energy generation data to AR platform then we give the the reward and we're using those you know the the the energy data on chain to you know moneti into the environment asset called the renewable energy you know the the CK but it's a totally unchain and uh in the demand side we also create the very interesting you know the community project called the uh the green BDC crub and using the community to work together to to offside the Legacy the historical car mission of the Bitcoin Network in the past 50 years so uh we the the whole Community already greened more than you know the the 150,000 Bitcoin Brocks in the past n nine months and totally 100 gaw hour Brown energy consumption by the green the the Bitcoin networ already be offside and the 100% unchain so we are try to build this uh you know the purely unchain protocol base you know the climate the action platform for the for the people for the individual thanks hi everyone good morning um my name is Luke Smith uh I represent a company called Terra Genesis we are a regenerative design and development firm um we've been around since 2009 and um our work focuses on the development of regenerative agriculture Supply systems um so we work with the farmers and the buyers and everybody in in between and for the purposes of of this session I'll be be um focusing on some work we've been doing here in Thailand um uh working with a a network of uh small holder rubber farmers and especially a an outcome verification protocol and program called ethos that we've been developing in recent years that enables Farmers um to collect data about the changes that are underway in their in their Farms the positive socioeconomic and ecological changes and how they're using that data in order to differentiate their products in the marketplace and to meet the needs of um buyers who are increasingly facing a lot more string stringent regulations um and so need to be able to back up any claims that they make with with real data and um also to support the kind of marketing claims um that they want to make um and just a quick plug will if you want to learn more about our work um we'll be we'll be showing a documentary that um we made in collaboration with the Northface um during the lunch hour which is uh 1:00 I think thanks thank you um sorry for being late really wanted to catch the other session with Monte uh I'm Thea from FR coms I also contribute to other projects like crypto alism refi meting and I also lead the refi podcast so I love asking questions um today I'll be asking a lot of questions about deepen decentralized physical infrastructure and I feel like we really went like deep in with some of the no pun intended with some of the topics already but I want to set a foundation for the conversation first so if each of you can maybe share a little bit about what deepin actually is and also how can it be used to drive positive climate outcomes so uh maybe Leo let's start with you uh if you want to share uh yeah the yeah uh so d our you know the experience we uh uh because we we started the the dipping project uh beginning of the 2023 so it's quite early and uh uh we really uh you know the realized the dipping is very important model and uh it's a very important infrastructure to create this climate action you know the activity and uh because the today the the broading is is is is the infrastructure it's a low cost and the permission list infrastructure for anybody the any you know the the individual to particip in the crime action uh today's you know the the the traditional carbon Market the all those tool all those you know the the platform is mainly for the corporate for the go government but if we are asking the question uh can I participate in the climate action as the individual it's quite difficult because we do not have the two we do not have the platform and we do not have the uh kind of uh recognition the reward mechanism to motivate the people to join the take the climate action so we think the dipping will create the model and to bring the a very uh important strategic model to to motivate the the the individual uh every people to participant the climate action either as the supply side or as a demand side I can explain a little bit detail uh for example the the the AR is uh try to unboarding the rout solar panels and the data to broading platform try to monetizing those uh uh the green energy data to the the the RC the environment asset so uh today those uh you know the environment asset devel developer they don't want the uh Monti they don't want to develop the the rout solar pan because it's too small the I mean the the SS size and uh so if we can Ying the iot technology we can real time you know the the collecting the the green energy data from the solar panel and and uh the broing is kind of a a low cost infrastructure to monetizing to issue those green asset on the broading and uh without the you know the high cost because all those verification the rtion the insurance even the trading the Redemption you can run it on the broading with the low cost even the the small size the very small size you know the the the the asset so that's the surprise side we think the the broading the dipping base you know the platform is a perfect you know the the platform the tool to to to issue the uh green asset coming from the people Centric Behavior those green Behavior you install the solar panel and you generate the green energy you should be recognized you should be reward so that's a surprise side demand side we are also uh realize today the if the people want to participate in the voluntary carbon neutr if you want to buy the small size of the the environment asset it's a quite difficult because today the market is more for the wholesale buyer for the corprate they buy the bunch of the carbon credit but if I'm the the the normal user in the summer I I consumed the 100 kilowatt hour electricity the brown energy and I want to claim my summer is a green I want to offside those br br energy the 100 kilow hour I want to buy the 0.1 the r from the market to do the the offside to the onction offside but no you know the platform offer those a kind of a product so the the bring is a kind of a platform because if you can Bridge or if you can native you know issue the RC on the bro you can fractionate to the the very small size the the the asset the even the the one kilowatt hour you can you can run in the aning offside on the broing so that is the beauty of the uh the broing infrastructure and that is the beauty of the dipping the model and the using the global uh Community to the to to do the collaboration and co-build and co-own this infrastructure thank you Luke or David do you want to go next deep in stands for decentralized physical infrastructure let's start with physical so it's a device that usually blockchain is a virtual construct right like it's a it's a software product and physical is very special in the web free space because we are usually not in real life we're usually like in telegram groups so physical means that we deploy sensors around um the World why physical well at gain Force we believe that we cannot value but we cannot measure and sensors are the only way we can measure biodiversity and Forest it could be sensors like cites which are less decentralized more centralized because like it's owned by space companies but the centralized sensors like this thing it's that's an audium of it listens to the sounds of forest it can be installed there it can stay there for three to four weeks without needing you to exchange any batteries um these sensors can be deployed cheaply around Forest to listen and collect signals of Life Beauty and biodiversity that we can then use the analyze infrastructure so that's physical infrastructure means that these sensors are connected in an infrastructure um you usually when you say okay I want to improve the economy of a place you always invest in infrastructure first because it makes life easier and this is the same with local communities if you invest in infrastructure you basically enable them to learn about these new devices you give them Financial opportunities you also Empower them to own that data themselves right and you also make them kind of the stewards of the own their own machines so infrastructure is really important to empower economies decentralized this is where we in web 3 come in we need a way to deploy them fast and cheaply and across the world because we are dealing with an urgent crisis so gain Force itself we are tackling the climate and Bersy emergency how we do this is we use web free ideas we pay people for collecting data so we create an incentive for these sensors to deployed around the world right now we have more than 40 sensors deployed around the world in 28 communities we have collected more than 100,000 minutes of audio moth recording I can play later one as well in case you're interested how this sounds um and it's also a great way to get the ideas that we're good at in our communities designing mechanism and incentives to coordinate people and deploy this onto physical infrastructure projects to scale these infrastructure projects and we try to do this for good and to try to measure the value of B diversity thank you David for that General introduction that was really that was really useful um so there's some there's some parallels with with what we're working on um so deep in in our context is um really related to cell phone technology and and iot um also using Eco acoustic uh sensors um we really believe that um in a in a regenerative agriculture context the most um the the best people for determining what regeneration means and the best people for tracking that change are the farmers themselves um so in our system um farmers are collecting data about their own farms and about their neighbors Farms we build on a methodology called a participatory guarantee system system um which comes out of the agroecology world and really developed as an alternative to the the big certifications um like organic and fair trade and so on that a lot of farmers didn't really feel were suitable for their context or really um were in their best interests um of course they're highly centralized and bureaucratic and expensive um and involve essentially imposing standards from the outside on communities um so participatory guarantee systems essentially enable Farmers to determine what are the most appropriate indicators in their context for them to be tracking the change that's underway um and then it's a peer-to-peer system so they're um they're they're monitoring and verifying and and supporting each other um so that's been rolled out pgs has been rolled out in many places around the world but usually it's a sort of a paper based system um and usually sort of in in local or national contexts um very rarely are those systems sort of recognized within a more sort of Global Market context and so what we've done is that we've we've we've we've taken the pgs approach and we've digitized that so we're using App based surveys um that have been designed in um in partnership with the farmers um to collect data about the um socioeconomic uh and ecological changes that are underway and it's really important to get that IC picture because you know we we humans and nature are not separate um we are part of socioecological systems um so it's really important for us to measure things like biodiversity and carbon sequestration and waterers shed Health but also farmer well-being and um equity and um sort of community uh Community Health um so yeah back to deep in so farmers are collecting data using App based surveys um taking pictures geore reference photos that enable us to track change we use machine learning algorithms in order to be able to to track change from one year to the next um and then using we're we're rolling out right now an Eco Acoustics um pilot in partnership with an organization called Wildman so we'll be able to track the soundscape and then from that determine what is the the health of biodiversity within different agricultural systems that are in varying different phases of transition from conv itional to highly Diversified multistat aggr forestry systems such as the the rubber systems here in the south of Thailand that that we've been supporting for the last several years down in in slar and pong um so David mentioned the point around sort of decentralization versus centralization there are certain things that farmers can't track um and so so for that um we are also integrating um in addition to the primary data um secondary and tertiary data too so uh secondary data being things like um working with academic Partners who are doing doing studies um uh and tertiary a data using remote sense data using public and private uh data sets and essentially then what we're able to do is we're able to get a read on what's Happening from the micro sort of sub Farm level up to the landscape scale and in so doing we can um we can correlate and cor and collaborate the change that's underway at those varying different scales um and um that gives us a much richer understanding of of the the change that's underway um the last point I would make is that um data sovereignty is core to the program that that that we're developing we really believe that farmers data is their data data that they're collecting that's being collected about their Farms is is Theirs to determine how to use they may decide that they want to share that data with their their their neighbors and and and people in their community so that they can all learn from that um and and have that influence uh their their management approaches and adapt to uh change um or they may decide that they want to license that data to somebody that wants to use it like a brand that wants to uh make marketing claims and compliance attestations and use it for profit generating purposes um there are other use cases like investors and government agencies and academic Partners But ultimately it's up to the farmers to determine what is in their best interests um and how how best that data should be used thank you for sharing that um I feel like one of the biggest criticism of the you know climate space or the reg Finance space specifically is often that there is a big gap between the tech vision and the implementation on the ground with the local communities right and this is like two layers obviously the first layer is the technology itself right you can have idea okay I'm going to bring this technology to this community but then you get there you're like wow there's no internet connection here for example so I feel like the tech is the first layer and the second layer is actually the community ownership that that some of you have mentioned already like uh yeah I can bring this technology and even if I can make it work then still uh did I make sure that the community is interested in the solution did I make sure they know how to use that solution did I make sure that they can benefit fully from the solution so uh how do you observe these uh problems uh in the real world and what are some of the things that you're doing to to tackle them um maybe uh let's go from this way now yeah actually that's a really great uh way to Loop into something I wanted to test out let's see if that works so I play you a small sound clip from the Amazon we collected let's see if that works and if someone can tell me what they can hear [Applause] so what do you hear like do you know this animal but do you hear that this [Music] hauling yeah what is this it's a monkey it's a it's a it's a Hower monkey the first time I heard this when it was collected by our indigenous scientists in the Amazon I was freaking scared I'm what is this I'm getting eaten alive in a second so I I visit the Amazon quite often because I just love being with the communities and then Marina um from the mura people she's like David she was laughing David this is just a monkey this is like a small tytin but it's like big mouth this is how you include the communities because you are like you're not you don't know where to deploy these sensors you have no idea what you're listening to you can only you're only good in like let's let's be real we are only good in like decentralizing stuff right that's what we are here for so we know how to De develop these incentives pay people because we have a lot of cash we know we know these sensors so we can deploy them in the field because we know the tech but then the data um the way to deploy it the way to manage these sensors the way to retrieve that there's no way we can outbeat any of the local communities they can know they they exactly know how to maintain this they they can take full ownership and so that's what G Force we call codesign of um technology we know what we're good at but we also know what we really not good at so this data collection at scale only works in partnership with local communities by listening by implementing by refining by capacity building um Knowledge from from Grassroots up um and only in that way we can really deploy a solution that is not Tech Centric but human Centric right that is something that also considers the expertise and values the people who on the ground that can actually collect the data and I think that's a big problem that we can achieve with physical infrastructure to solve the issues that we face with climate and biodiverse emergency like clearly we have an issue with market failure here clearly we don't value nature and clearly we don't value biodiversity and that means also that we don't value the people who understand and value these things right and so by using decentralized and physical infrastructure projects what we do at gain Force by empowering in capacity building it's one way for us to give back because we know this is what we're good at but also it's one way to listen back in and understand okay this is what they are good at and by bridging these together we hope that we can influence using the data the sources that we know these people don't care just yet about these things so we for example take the data um ftin in my team she's leaving Unfortunately today because cop starts in aaban but we're bringing these data sets to negotiators at the highest level of policymaking and try to integrate them into decision- making who are people who are naturally very far away from the communities but we believe that this is important to do and this is something that our commune is really good at doing Leo would you like to continue yeah uh to to make the community uh be involved and uh uh to co-build and co-own in the dipping project the token economy is very important and we need to design the the good you know the token token economy and to make sure the the Committee Member we call the Builder no matter it's a supply side to invest the hardware to collecting the data or the demand side the user decide to consume those uh green asset issue on the Chain uh we need to have the uh token incentive it's kind of a utility token and to be designed in this uh the depping infrastructure Network so for for aring we are uh our you know the utility token is uh be used to the both side the in the surprise side if the the Comm member to unboarding their solar panel and uh uh install the iot device the smart meter and collecting the energy data and unch issue the uh the RC the green CK uh we will give the the reward uh it's a UT token and in the in the Dema if the the Comm member who do the uning offside to offside the no matter it's a it's a it's a bitcoin's a historical you know the BR energy consumption or the the using the the smart produ to measure the his coffee machines energy consumption and to do the unction offside we will also give the the U token uh as the reward because in the bootstrap you need those commun member the Builder to to help you to build the network and to contribute their value in the supplies and the demand side and uh those uh you know the the time and the money the capital investment will get the feedback get the benefit it's a UT token so uh in the future if the this dipping network is uh it's you know the growing to some level and we will have the the more external uh the supply side the more you know the the the solar project will join try to using the the this dipping infrastructure to issue the uh the the carbon credit or the RC or the the demon side more corporate will join to using this decentralized infrastructure to to offside their their Brown energy consumption then you will bring the external value you will the the token the token will capture the external value then the whole you know the infrastructure Network the value will be increase that every token holder I mean the the community builder in the earli stage in the bootst to do the contribution will also enjoy those uh Network you know the grows and enjoy the benefit based on the you know the depping Network's growth so that is uh uh very important to design the token economy and make sure that every uh Builder will be uh uh uh uh recognize their contribution with the UT token I see we short time so I'll keep it I'll keep it short um so yeah I I think the the co-design process with the community is is you know really crucial and the appropriateness of technology so cell phones are ubiquitous so it and especially in um in in the global South and so designing ways of using existing technology has been really effective in our in our approach um but still there's a learning curve and and training is incredibly important um my colleagues Michael and puki have been really instrumental in helping Farmers learn how to use their cell phones as as data collection devices um and then I I've spoken about data sovereignty already but maybe just to raise what I think is a um you know the the exciting potential of deepin and one of the big challenges with the more centralized approach is that just because data is being collected doesn't necessarily mean that that data should be shared um it really we need to have semi-permeable membranes that essentially allow those whose data you know the data that's being collected about them about their lives about their communities that they are in control of ensuring that that whether that data clock crosses the membrane or not is is up to them to decide um so there's some sort of interesting sort of flex around non-rivalry and and and non-excludability depending upon who's using the data and for what purposes um and you know with Global satellites you know collecting data all the time about every square inch of the planet um is it appropriate that those companies own all of that data and use it as they see fit um or do we need some better safeguards to ensure that that data is used appropriately thank you I'll just quickly quickly ask one last question I'm curious if we had the same conversation a year ago how would have it been different how has they been progressed over the past year let's say if anyone wants to add look they want a start this time well we started um we started integrating Eco Acoustics so um yeah I mean it's enormously exciting and you can learn so much about the biodiversity of a place by by using that technology and interested to learn about David's experience as well thank you Leo do you want to go next yeah we uh we also enjoyed the the past you know the year the actually the one at half year the all those uh the Our commity member the Builder to uh to do the contrib and to cild this the AR this decentral infrastru network and uh yeah we we believe that we can uh you know work together with all those Community member to build the better you know the the aring you know the dipping project yeah David we're quite surprised to to be considered as deepen so we're like I think the term because that's nothing has changed from our initial strategy back when we found it I think deepin is just a new word to describe kind of the collective mechanism that we are following but what is different this year compared to last year is the AI and the advancements in artificial intelligence that we can leverage to analyze that data so we can extract and create and analyze much more valuable information out of for example bio acoustic than we could do last year and the year before so we do see an accelerating change here in this area great thank you everyone [Applause] n