From industries like Automotive and Logistics to Mining and Oil and Gas, there is an increase demand from consumers, regulators, and investors for data sharing and transparency. This has led to frontier technologies, such as Blockchain, AI/ML, and IoT, becoming significant trends in the current digital transformation landscape.
In areas where large amounts of data are collected and need to be processed and verifiably shared, blockchain, IoT, and ML/AI tools all need to work together to deliver a seamless and operationally efficient solution.
In this article, we review why these technologies are in demand, the challenges in implementing such solutions, and how Gora’s distributed computing network will play a key role in leading this digital transformation.
The Need for Transparency and Trust
The need for transparency and trust is becoming more crucial as environmental and social challenges are becoming acute. In an age where the means of production is highly complex to a layman, and the production happens out of sight of most, consumers, regulators, and investors are increasingly pushing companies for transparency.
To illustrate just how important transparency and trust are in improving sustainability, a study of 1000 technology and ESG leaders across key industries vital for the decarbonization agenda (i.e agriculture, mining, oil and gas, utilities, and transport) found that 96% agree that environmental issues are important to the senior leadership.
However, 76% of these leaders doubted the ESG reporting of their peers. This is because emissions and similar types of reporting, including carbon credit programs, are largely self-reported. 81% of these leaders believed that frontier technologies are needed and can help businesses measure, analyze, and report on ESG progress, but only 47% are happy to share all of their ESG data with third parties in the immediate future.
Verifiably reporting an organization’s sustainability efforts and outcomes is widely accepted to become a key driver of profitability and investment. Therefore, the first organizations to implement verifiable reporting not only have a competitive advantage but also get ahead of increasingly stringent regulations on how data must be collected and reported.
The Challenge of adopting Blockchain technology
Gora has seen firsthand how organizations that attempted to pioneer blockchain adoption have become frustrated by the lack of knowledgeable people, or tools available to implement the solution. These organizations usually make the decision to postpone the transformation until such time the technology is more mature, losing out on first-mover advantages.
One area that is especially lagging in solutions is use cases that require connecting IoT and sensor network data to the blockchain.
The biggest challenge is cost. Most organizations must start off by building out their own solution from scratch. This is because most solutions, like Layer-1 blockchains, are too broad or limited, do not solve any specific problem (i.e. just providing the settlement layer), or are too specific, requiring the organization to change their processes to suit the vendor’s implementation.
Another major challenge is the skills gap. While general-purpose developers are a key pillar of most organizations, blockchain, and IoT developers tend to be much rarer, driving up the costs of custom implementations.
To solve some of these issues, a solution is needed that is broad enough to allow customizations that mesh with the organization’s processes and take advantage of the organization’s existing human resources and technology stack.
How Gora is leading the charge
Gora’s node network aims to allow organizations to ramp up the speed and quality of their digital transformation by providing the tools needed to implement the custom use cases the organization needs. Whether an automotive company wants to enable users to share the quality of their driving habits or an Oil and Gas company wants to verifiably track carbon emissions, Gora’s solution provides the base layer for a wide range of use cases that can be built. In general, an application built on the Gora network operates in some key stages:
- Collection of large amounts of data
- Computation of the data prior to storage on the network
- IPFS storage for items not needed on-chain
- Committing to a public or private blockchain
Gora is compromised of a network of nodes, which provide computing power that allows sensors, IoT devices, or general-purpose APIs to stream data to the network. This distributed group of nodes can then connect to the blockchain of choice for the organization — whether it’s a permissionless chain like Algorand or a permissioned network like Hyperledger Fabric.
Reduce reliance on centralized server infrastructure
An open and decentralized node network increases trust and transparency, since using a centralized server to commit data to the blockchain results in questions about the legitimacy of the data being committed (or what is being omitted). By going straight from the source of the data to the ledger or IPFS (a decentralized database), organizations can verifiably prove the results of their data collection.
Furthermore, using a centralized cloud provider can result in costs that increase significantly as usage increases, whereas a distributed node network uses the resources of a larger number of Node operators, reducing the overall cost to any single entity.
Use Familiar tools
By Abstracting away the distributed nature of decentralized networks, organizations can focus on integrating their data sources, writing the application logic needed to process the data and store actionable insights on-chain.
For example, if the data source is a network of sensors, these sensors can stream the data they collected to the Gora network for processing. Then, application logic, such as filtering, reducing noise, or finding patterns using AI/ML, the Gora network prepares the data to be committed on-chain for end users.
Getting Started on Your Digital Transformation Journey
To get started on your digital transformation journey, start by determining your use case, and what type of data you need to power it. If you have questions such as whether your application can benefit from a solution like Gora Network, which blockchains to use (if any), or the timeline of such a project, Contact Us to brainstorm or schedule a call with a member of our team.
About Gora
Gora is an oracle platform that provides secure, reliable, and decentralized data feeds for Algorand and other blockchains. With a mission to enable seamless data integration for smart contracts, Gora empowers projects to make data-driven decisions and unleash the full potential of dApps.
For more information about Gora, visit our Linktree.
