Multi-Faceted vs Polymorphic
“The truth is multi-faceted, a lie is polymorphic” ~ Mr. Churchill I believe
When my team and I bought into the idea of changing the status quo for the bottom half of the human pyramid, we were faced with a fairly binary choice.
- Follow conventional wisdom, listen to VC’s and coporate advisors: Focus on one thing
- Address a massively complex problem that calls for multiple solutions: Do many things
Being non-conformists we have opted for no. 2.
This immediately disqualified us from conventional VC capital, and we have had to go about this in alternative and creative ways — the subject of book perhaps. “The Curious Case of Unintended Consequences and Redemption”
Changing the status quo, in our context, involves underdogs. Now, while some of us are the sort to hug trees, give stray puppies homes, and believe we should come to the aid of our desperately aggrieved neighbour, we have also made the effort to achieve enough diversity to also have hard-nosed capitalists in our team. Basically we must also make a buck, whatever our motivations.
This means commercial viability, prudence and all the redeeming qualities of a Fortune 500 company have to co-exist with the bleeding hearts of Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace. (Did I hear someone shout, “Sign me up!”)
In order to bring about change, inclusion, and digital interactions that leapfrog the hegemonies that be, we have opted for distributed systems, business models, and ownership paradigms. We are building a new ecosystem from the ground up to provide a more equitable way for interactions to take place.
What comes across as de-focussed in some assessments (you can imagine some of the conversations we have had), involves a broad strategy that can be explained through the use of lots of multi-coloured Powerpoint slides as the gentlemen from Boston do. Or we can just look at the last resort of all nuts, the hexagon. (Find inspiration in simple things)
Over the last year we have been working on the building blocks of this strategy. The foundational components have a high priority.
a. Self-Sovereign Digital Identity, which places the individual at the center of all things. Our private key management appliance, Blackbird, is already being trialed in the market as a crypto hardware wallet. Keeping private keys and password interactions private in an air-gapped, personal device.
The digital identity application provides an attestation platform that is open to any institution (or individual) that can act as a mutually trusted party to verify aspects of an identity. This solution is now being customized for trials in some interesting places.
b. Consensus / Blockchain, which engenders trust. Not satisfied with just another “me too” effort, we chose instead to look at the underlying problems of mainstream blockchains — energy usage, lack of distributedness, barriers to entry for potential consensus participants. Our solution is the Proof of Velocity ASIC, combined with Proof of Elapsed Time. A game changer. Being trialed in FPGA form, and will be ready for chip manufacturing in early 2019.
c. Connectivity, especially the so-called “last mile” connectivity, is mostly what has kept half of humanity from participating in our shiny new digital lifestyles. (Lack of money to pay for it is the other big factor, but lets stick to first principles). To address this we looked at the reason why the cellular companies have not been able to solve that problem in three decades of spectacular industry growth. To their credit, they have been enormously successful in bringing most of the top half into the digital fold, but we were particularly interested in what stops them reaching the other half.
The reasons led us to designing a new type of telecoms network that is communally owned and driven. The network will be driven, in the early stages, by our Ammbr multi-radio, multi-protocol mesh router device. Owners of Ammbr devices will be able to charge for Internet connectivity, provided through their own backhaul, or backhaul somewhere else on the mesh network. Payment for connection and transit gives the device owner a primary income.
The Ammbr Network is due for launch in early 2019, with trials taking place this year in multiple countries. We have been fortunate to attract some of the greatest practitioners in the mesh networking space, who are beavering away on chips, electronics, protocols, and Blockchain integrations.
d. The Computing Platform is an edge cloud solution that is actually somewhat ahead of the development curve. This will provide computing and storage space for hire on Ammbr devices with computing and storage platters. Owners of devices will be able to charge for Docker containerized instances and slices of disc space. This will provide those owners a secondary income, in addition to charging for Internet connectivity.
e. The Rails refer to infrastructure that moves goods and services around the world, with as little “friction” as possible. SendX and Electra are our primary solutions, almost ready for market. Soft launch in August, and we will grow that steadily. As the Ammbr Network rolls out, SendX will be there too.
f. Content. Now this is an interesting one. But since we still have that under wraps, I will have to leave you with the assurance it is rather nice.
So why the title?
The complexity of what we are aiming to accomplish means we must see this as a multi-faceted problem, requiring multiple interlocking solutions. What we have to avoid is the tendency change our tune and become polymorphic. Jellyfish are so hard to like. Products come and go, solutions change with circumstances. But, staying true to our vision, and portraying a consistent identity speaks to the integrity we uphold.
Disclaimer. These are my own musings, and any implied inferences or offenses are my own burden to bear. Often vehement disagreements, and subsequent trust in decisions made by consensus is a feature of a strong team, but the foot-in-mouth syndrome is generally the malaise of one.