Proposed by Abreu Advogados
Abreu Advogados was created in 1993 and currently has more than 200 lawyers in a team of more than 300 professionals. This is an independent law firm that develops institutional relationships with several legal associations and international law firms. At Abreu Advogados it is promoted the policy of the 3Qs: Human Quality, Technical Quality and Organizational Quality. Abreu Advogados is present in Portugal with 3 offices and has partnerships with law firms in Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, China, Mozambique and Timor-Leste (joint office).
Winner Project - Altantis Blockchain Explorer
The concept proposed by Altantis Blockchain Explorer is focused on the development of a mobile app for Android and iOS considering the following features:
- Creation of a marketplace for smart contracts (valid for buy and sell contracts, for instance);
- A chat interface so that all parties involved can have the chance to discuss, negotiate and develop the digital contracts on the Blockchain;
- Digital arbitration within smart contracts;
- Using Artificial Intelligence for the ranking of contractors, service providers, mediators, and parametric legal contracts' models.
Finalist Project - TechHQ
TechHQ has presented a solution that allows:
- To access legal documents of a particular network and according to the accessibility policies dictated by the entity responsible for the Blockchain;
- Validate and verify the validity of documents on the Blockchain;
- Observe the history of document validations on the Blockchain.
Challenge Description
New technologies and approaches such as on-demand, distributed ledgers (including technologies such as Blockchain), artificial intelligence, and automation are being incorporated into traditional contracts, and legal processes.
At the same time new models of contractual use are developing where contractual static relations is giving way to dynamic subscription and other relationship models. For instance in transport, car ownership is increasingly having to compete with new models of rental and access services. These models will also require a new cadre of contractual services which are focused on dynamic contractual terms.
The combination of these trends opens an opportunity for the development of smart contract based services which help co-ordinate and make more efficient the development, use, maintenance and service of legal relationships.
We would be interested in services which span across traditional boundaries of legal and services providing distributed informed solutions to make these processes better co-ordinated, secure and more efficient and provide platforms for new models of use.
We are particularly interested in solutions that leverage open and shared data to:
- Help ensure the integrity of interactions within smart contracts;
- Integrate data of different modalities (sensors, legal data, historical records, event triggers) to produce useful services and establish new types of relationships;
- Use legal data to predict contract change needs and create more efficient servicing and legal services; and
- Predict and help optimise contract usage and parties satisfaction level, including in multi-stakeholder scenarios.
Proposed by Grupo Almedina
Grupo Almedina (Almedina Group) was founded in 1955 in Coimbra in front of the famous Arco de Almedina by Joaquim Machado. Although a small bookshop at the time, in the last more than 60 years, Almedina has established itself as one of the most relevant book publishers in Portugal. By working closely with the universities and facing the need of publishing academic books, soon Almedina has gained its market place in the publishing industry.
Contributing to the diffusion of new authors and currents of opinion and research, the publishing houses of the Almedina Group are mainly positioned in the areas of technical knowledge not neglecting the publication of works that contribute to critical thinking and reflection. Edições Almedina, widely recognized as a leader in legal issues in Portugal, also publishes, among others, in the areas of medicine, psychology, education, economics and exact sciences. In order to improve and enhance these areas of action, the Almedina Group acquired two publishers, Actual Editora - in the areas of Economics and Management - and Edições 70 - recognized for publishing books in the area of Social and Human Sciences.
Along with the publishing business, the Group expanded its bookstore network, which emerged along the main academic centers of the country: Braga, Porto, Coimbra, and Lisbon. At the moment there are eleven physical bookstores and a virtual bookstore (available at www.almedina.net), with a general offer privileging the editorial quality fund. The Almedina Group has been particularly attentive to the CPLP markets, having created, in 2005, Almedina Brasil, based in São Paulo, and established partnerships for the markets of Angola and Mozambique.
Description
How can we use Blockchain to make content production and authoring more trustworthy and protect authors' content authenticity and safety online?
Contextualization
The Web as we know it is going through a critical stage with a number of trends threatening the principles in which it was originally developed. In some areas there is an increasing dissatisfaction with the amount of misinformation being shared online - a phenomenon recently identified as "fake news". Simultaneously, the original values of the Web in relation to openness and tolerance have been challenged by an increase in mistrust (cyber attacks and bullying) and copywright infringement. To conclude, the freedom which was envisaged for individuals and companies is being threatened by content authentication and security concerns, in some part driven by the business models adopted by some of the main commercial players. These concerns were raised by none other than Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web in an open letter.
Content based products and services will play a vital role in creating a more open and tolerant Web, as well as showing how commercial value can be created by helping combat these concerns. For instance, Blockchain algorithms and AI could assign trust scores to websites based on the content reliability could cross-reference facts across the web, as well as predict the likelihood of content being “fake” based on other data.
We are particularly interested in solutions that leverage closed and co-created content to:
- Identify, define and predict “fake sources” as well as provide a means for fact checking information prior to publishing;
- Build tools and services that alert authors of authoring vulnerabilities;
- Create solutions which combat authoring algorithm bias;
- Provide means for checking compliance when new laws and regulations are produced; and
- Monetize content for distribution and curation.
Data
Examples of data include but are not limited to:
- authored content
- digital archives
- content from producers and consumers
- content from news agencies
- customer segmentation data
Expected outcomes
Examples of outcomes may include but are not limited to:
- new apps and services (web, mobile etc), publishing tools for news and online articles
- new algorithms (for information propagation, provenance mining, prediction, content recognition etc.)
- new technologies to integrate data sources
- new tools and business processes to support decision making that make insights of algorithms easier to understand
- new forms of content hardware (e.g. wearables, VR, AR).
Expected impacts
Participants will need to provide details on the impact measurement framework they would use to show how their solution:
- helps people produce, consume and get better access to high quality information;
- improves the accuracy of content, news and information online;
- improve awareness of misinformation online.
- make content producers feel safer online; and/or
- make content producers more aware of how their content is being used and where there are vulnerabilities.
Proposed by Associação Portuguesa de Seguradores
Associação Portuguesa de Seguradores, APS, was founded in 1982, and is a non-profit association of the insurance and reinsurance companies operating in the Portuguese market, irrespective of their legal nature or country of origin. The members of APS presently account for 99% of the insurance market in terms of business turnover and human resources employed by the sector.
The Challenge
How can we automate the collection, verification and authorization of land registration information in the context of realty multi-risk insurance to ensure a prompt response to the insured? Blockchain technology can be a very useful and powerful tool for verifying and obtaining key information from the Land Registry in the context of the application of realty multi-risk insurances and disaster funds and the adequacy of premiums in the underwriting of equity risks.
Description
Can a Blockchain-based solution be used to verify, obtain and authorize the transfer of information from the Land Registry in the context of the application of disaster funds?
Context
There are several possible use cases of Blockchain technology in the insurance sector and all of them with enormous disruptive potential from the point of view of the profound changes that can provoke in the current business models of this industry. Considering the urgent need for insurers to collect as much accurate information as possible in certain areas (land, car, citizenship and other registers), one of the possibilities lies in the interoperability between insurers' products and government databases, as is the case of the Land Registry.
As demonstrated by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the example of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010 is very illustrative of the existing problems all around the world regarding situations of crises and catastrophes. During the process of reconstruction of the country, the difficulty in identifying the owners of the land subject to intervention constituted a strong obstacle to the beginning of the reconstruction work of the Haitian infrastructures.
With a Blockchain-based solution, this problem could be solved effectively by developing immutable records over which there is no doubt as to the authenticity, ownership and responsibility of the data contained therein. In this way, the records are permanently linked to the system so that they are not tampered or forged, increasing the transparency, robustness and agility of the entire process.
Having said this and considering the possibilities arising from the application of such a solution in Portugal, it is intended to create the necessary conditions for verification and obtaining essential information of the land register (whether from the Land Registry or of the carnet made available by the Tax Authority) in cases of seismic risk. Taking this approach into account, the way in which the disaster funds are applied and the adequacy of the premiums in the subscription of the equity risks can be improved.
From the point of view of the application of Blockchain-based solutions by the APS, a proposal to solve the presented problem can only gather characteristics that work the sector as a whole, approaching all the players involved and pointing to a solution that is transversal to this industry. With this challenge, we intend to:
- To have a complete view of the Portuguese housing stock so that the products presented by the insurers are as accurate as possible;
- Identify the characteristics of the property and the owner in the area of seismic risk and in the case of urban assets; and
- Use the matrix article (a key) to perform searches in the land registry; or Fiscal Identifying Number (NIF) and article matrix, the county/parish of the fraction under analysis to search the records of the Tax Authority in order to obtain information from the land registry.
Data
Examples of anonymized data that may be made available for the development of a Minimum Valuable Product (MVP) or Proof of Concept (PoC) include, but are not limited to:
- Actuarial data of catastrophes (earthquakes, floods, etc.);
- Dates of beginning and closing of the insurance;
- Dates of loss and participation;
- CAE (the Portuguese classification of economic activities) of the activity, in the case of companies;
- Type of product (Housing, Condominium, Commerce, Industry/Manufacturing, Commerce and Services, Engineering);
- Type of insured object (Building, Belongings, Building and Inseparable Belongings, Company Activity, etc.);
- Affected coverage (Seismic Phenomena, Landslides/Geological Accidents, Exploration Losses/Profits/Rents, etc.);
- Type of compensation (Total Loss or Partial Loss).
Expected outcomes
Examples of outcomes may include but are not limited to:
- Solutions that guarantee the robustness and reliability of the data provided by the different interlocutors;
- Applications, tools or services that are triggered in the event of a disaster in order to have accurate, immediate and total visibility of the affected areas, allocated coverage and compensatory payments;
- Algorithm that assures the accumulation of risk;
- Integration of georeferencing tools;
- Access features to legacy systems that allow systems transition processes.
Expected impacts
Participants will need to provide details on the impact measurement framework they would use to show how their solution:
- Ensure the harmonization of concepts in the sector;
- Ensure the agility of the Subscription, Claims and Reinsurance processes, improving their speed, dematerialization and digitization;
- Ensure the transparency of the process, the reliability of the data and the resulting benefits;
- Improve visibility on areas not covered by disaster insurance;
- Increase the transparency of the process and accelerate the process of reparation to the insured.
Proposed by BCSD
BCSD Portugal – Conselho Empresarial para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável (Enterprise Council for Sustainable Development) is a non-profit association of public interest that represents companies engaged with sustainability. Through the conception of inter-companies projects that promote sustainable development, BCSD Portugal has been an active player in Portugal over the last 15 years. Inspiring new business models that are competitive, innovative, responsible, sustainable and inclusive, BCSD Portugal is the leader organization in sustainable development within the business community.
Description
The World Economic Forum has already stated that carbon credits are the perfect candidates for crypto tokens as these are data-driven, rely on multiple approval steps and are independent from the physical impact to which they correlate. Furthermore, through smart contracts and verifiable transactions, Blockchain technology addresses all the concerns and challenges associated with lack of standardization.
With this challenge, we aim to encourage the development of solutions that increase suppliers’ accountability within the supply chain of a company or group of companies. Blockchain can help companies meet the demand for accurate, reliable, standardized and available information for carbon emission calculation. Blockchain technology promotes instant authentication, immutable data records and smart contracts to integrate suppliers, manufacturers, logistics service providers, and stocking locations into a single network for rule-based interactions and value generation.
The Blockchain technology has enormous potential to combine efforts and aggregate information with the goal of tracking – and thus reducing – the carbon footprint reduction of any given final product. In a Blockchain network, each party will be able to report the carbon emissions across their individual value chains based on standardized metrics, thereby creating a single platform for carbon measurement. Blockchain can deliver standardized and accepted algorithms to calculate carbon emissions. This can be one of the key benefits of the integrated platform.
Moreover, connecting Blockchain to various source systems such as ERP and SCADA will simplify data gathering across the supply chain, thereby improving visibility at lower cost, time and effort. Manufacturers, suppliers and distributors can work together in a transparent and accountable manner with the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or retailer to drive a unified carbon ecosystem with accurate measurement and credits.
A possible solution is to develop a SCM monitoring network that provides carbon footprint data and patterns to help governments and companies define policies and best practices for incentivize low carbon footprint and sustainable product development.
We are particularly interested in solutions that leverage shared data and distributed solutions to:
- Use SCM carbon footprint data to predict product carbon weight and create more carbon efficient product designs
- Guarantee the sustainability of suppliers within the supply chain of a company or group of companies;
- Integrate data of different modalities (carbon metrics, SCM data, total cost of carbon footprint) to produce useful data services;- Forecast and optimise SCM usage and consumer and end user satisfaction levels, including in multi-stakeholder scenarios.
Data
Examples of data include, but are not limited to:
-SC Carbon footprint data
- ERP, SCM data
- Company data
- Maintenance and usage history
- Environmental data
- Geospatial data
Expected outcomes
Examples of outcomes may include, but are not limited to:
- SC carbon footprint monitoring Blockchain based solution
- New algorithms (supply chain analysis and monitoring, carbon footprint analysis, prediction of spikes in carbon footprint, event processing)
- DLT Tools for footprint reporting and visualisation of analytics results
Expected impacts
Participants will need to provide details on how they would develop a Blockchain solution as well as to demonstrate how that solution can:
- Monitor carbon footprint
- Disclose reliable information about a product’s carbon footprint
- Improve overall company sustainability and reputation
- Minimize consumer risks; and/or support low carbon footprint providers and SCM pathways
- Monitor and compare data on consumption trends and carbon footprint
Proposed by EMEL
It is with a great orientation towards innovation and excellence that EMEL – Empresa Municipal de Mobilidade e Estacionamento de Lisboa, E. M., S. A. (Lisbon Municipal Enterprise of Mobility and Parking) commits itself to make Lisbon a more modern, accessible and sustainable city, while making sure the necessary economic and social balance with the development of new technological solutions on a long-term perspective. EMEL also aims to improve the mobility conditions within the city and to provide their clients the time and money-saving needed to the functioning of smart and organized cities.
Winning Project
The concept proposed by Marionete facilitates the process of issuing couplets and makes this process much more efficient, less bureaucratic and less susceptible to fraud.
For eligible customers, it means that they could purchase a parking ticket in a much simpler and immediate way.
Based on Blockchain technology, this solution and the guarantees it provides enable different organizations to share processes and information securely and in this way it becomes possible to streamline processes, improve the results of these organizations and people's lives.
Description
Blockchain technology has been applied to identity applications in areas such as passports, digital identities, residency, birth documentation, wedding certificates, identifications, online account logins, among others. Creating an identity on Blockchain can give companies and individuals greater control over who has which information and how to access it. Recently, in February 2018 Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced plans to setup a Blockchain-based vehicle lifecycle management system in 2020 that will provide customers a vehicle history.
By combining a decentralized Blockchain with identity verification, a unique identification can be linked to act as a watermark which can be assigned to every transaction of any asset. As Blockchain addresses all of the functionalities and challenges associated with identification and verifiable transactions this presents a great opportunity for matching car ownership titles with a specific parking disc.
With this challenge we would be interested in one of two solutions:
A) A unique Blockchain that integrates data (car ownership title data and parking disc data) from both entities. Such solution must integrate both EMEL and IMT requirements.
or
B) two Blockchain based on an open, interoperable foundation with a robust decentralized identity ecosystem that is accessible to all. The solution can be based on Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF) with the following key components: W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs); Identity Hubs; Universal DID Resolver and Verifiable Credentials.
We are particularly interested in solutions that leverage shared data and distributed solutions to:
- Use car ownership title data to match with parking disc data and create an integrated registry
- Integrate data of records (car ownership, owner data, parking disc data) to produce useful data services;
- Guarantee the robustness of the registry records within both car ownership and parking registry entities;
- Predict future car parking disc needs and increase owners satisfaction levels.
Description
The challenge is an initiative developed by everis Portugal in partnership with the Portuguese Blockchain Alliance. It is based on the following challenge: How can we use Blockchain in the Human Resources hiring process for a company? Through this challenge, is intended to automate the process of hiring human resources for a company, ensuring that the certificates and courses of the participant presented in the curriculum are legitimate, that the signature of the contract between employee and employer is automated through the digital signature and that the work’s insurance agreement between employer and insurer is instantaneously done.
The everis Blockchain Challenge has as objectives:
a) Authenticate the curriculum information, done by the training institutions;
b) Automate the process of agreements with external entities in the hiring process (e.g., Insurance, Health Insurance, Food Coupons);
c) Track the information in the curriculum throughout employee life cycle;
d) Promote contracts signatures by employee and employer, by digital key, making the access to copies instantly available to both parties.
The platform should ensure to be in compliance with GDPR, data security and also contribute to the decrease of the use of paper during the hiring processes.
Expected outcomes
As expected outcomes, is the presentation of solutions in automation the process of hiring human resources, taking into account aspects such as feasibility, validity, originality, or degree of innovation, for example.
The expected solutions can be presented as new apps, services, algorithms, technologies to integrate databases and new tools that support business decisions.
Expected impacts
Contribute to the improvement of organizational processes, in order to develop innovative solutions, taking into account the use of Blockchain technology. The measurement of the impact will be made through the analysis of the solutions, according to the following criteria:
- Confidence in the information in the curriculum;
- Efficiency in the relationship with external entities;
- Curriculum monitoring
- Facilitated contract signature process.
Please check the full regulation for this challenge in this PDF file.
Proposed by Fidelidade
Fidelidade is the leading market insurer in Portugal, both in life and non-life, with a market share of around 27.7%. The company is present in the various insurance business segments and benefits from the largest network in Portugal, with a presence in several countries, namely Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Spain, France and Macau.
Winning project
The solution presented by Multicert is based on the creation of insurance for a single sporting event, such as a half-marathon, for example, that the participant can do. The winning team presented an automation and simplification of the network operation necessary for this type of insurance can be sold.
The winning solution is based on the concept of smart contracts, with a predefined set of parameters and validations that enable the elimination of human actors in the analysis and decision phases.
Finalist Project
The proposed idea corresponds to the SIS ^ 1 platform aimed at collaborative short-term insurance management, based on blockchain technology and smart contracts, considering distributed and collaborative processing by all elements of the network. This solution has the potential to considerably transform traditional claims and claims participation processes, and enables the adoption of disruptive business models with a high level of automation and fraud prevention.
Description
Challenge A: One-time insurance for sporting events ("closed" challenge that addresses a specific need of the Fidelidade business).
The increasing supply and accessibility of generic sports events, accompanied by widespread motivation for its practice by the general population, creates a relevant opportunity for an innovative positioning by insurance companies, available to cover the risks of accidents of the participants.
The aim of this challenge is to stimulate the development of a Blockchain network that allows the rapid and pragmatic subscription of these products, guaranteeing the participation of several nodes at the level of a) organization, responsible for recognizing the participants; b) entities certifying the claim in the field and c) the participants themselves; and d) the Insurer itself. In this solution, the following should be guaranteed:
- The subscription processes (upon registration or until a period before the date of the event);
- The recognition of participation in the event or the cancellation in case of cancellation or no-show;
- The creation of sinister;
- Recognition by the various parties;
- Deferment and payment or rejection.
Challenge B: Parametric Insurance ("open" challenge that responds to a need in a particular area of the Sector).
In the current context there are a set of parameters that surround us and whose events that trigger us are also univocally recognized by the various parties. The aim of this challenge is to create a parametric insurance model, taking advantage of the ability to monitor online risk based on parameters and Blockchain recognition of triggered events.
REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais works on the development of a more efficient, secure and competitive energy system, which guarantees the access of energy to all, with the lowest possible cost. REN has two main business areas: electricity and natural gas. In Portugal, it operates the main transport infrastructures, carries out the global management of the National Electric System and the National Natural Gas System. In addition, it also holds a natural gas distribution concession in the northern coastal region of Portugal. With a strong commitment to sustainable development, it consistently invests in the promotion of knowledge and research and development, deepening the relationship between academia and industry, with a view to anticipating solutions to the major technological and environmental challenges that arise at national and International.
Winning Project
The solution proposed by Blockbird Ventures is a solution called "Blockbird.energy +" that allows the purchase and sale of energy, allowing the buyer to choose how the energy was produced, for example, solar, wind or other type of production.
Blockbird's proposal uses Ethereum ERC-721 token, which are unique, can be sold to other users, keeps a record of transactions and is easily auditable.
Honorable mention
The Innov4u team presented a solution based on a marketplace so that you can buy and sell energy. Producers communicate to the market the willingness to trade for a certain period of time. At the same time, buyers will have the opportunity to see the energy that can be purchased.
The proposal allows to revolutionize the access to the market of production and commercialization of energy with a single, universal and decentralized energy market of registry, provider of services of added value and with homogenization of the conditions of access.
Projects Finalists
INESC-TEC's proposal is based on a marketplace for the purchase and sale of energy production surpluses. Through a P2P market, a microproducer can sell its surplus production to, say, a neighbor.
Through Ethereum, the suggested proposal 'tokenizes' the energy and the market keeps a record of the orders of purchase and sale of energy.
SpekSciences has proposed a transactional platform between producers, marketers and aggregators that enables P2P marketing based on Blockchain technology.
All transactions are made through the platform suggested by SpekScience in the form of smart contracts.