+Rideshare-CO2 = Ada

Purpose of Proposal
By sharing a ride, you are reducing your carbon emissions significantly. The cumulative effect of ride-sharing results in exponential decreases in CO2 emissions based on how many people can share a ride. We are going to give people some incentive to do this, and save our planet one shared ride at a time!
Background
At PaalUp, we have started a dapp geared towards bringing people together to facilitate the ride-share process. Our platform matches up individuals traveling to proximate destinations and gives them the flexibility to pick a ride hailing platform to use. As a decentralized app might suggest, we pair up the riders and then they are free to handle the ride share platform, payment sharing, and all other details using their platform of choice. This app has already been built to this point and will be finalized with the additions below.
Strategic Landscape
Globally, (before the pandemic) Uber and Lyft had over 120 million monthly active users. Additionally, it's estimated that over $40 billion is spent annually on carbon offsetting. This reveals a huge market for PaalUp to not only match up riders but also offer them incentives in the form of ADA rewards for CO2 emissions saved by ride-sharing alone. Our platform introduces a whole new community into the Cardano ecosystem while also providing a verifiable, auditable, and transparent marketplace for carbon credit transactions.
Strategic Direction
We have already built a partially functioning version of this app that facilitates the ride sharing component. Next, we need to address how to tokenize carbon credits. With this structure in place, users can cash out their accrued CO2 emissions offsets (tokens) and realize that there's true value in sharing their ride!
Our current strategy to achieve this:

• Implement a proof of location/ride
• Implement a proof of reputation strategy

• Incentivize peer reviewing to ensure adequate feedback
• Work with reputable local facilities/officials to measure CO2 emission estimates

• Create a simple algorithm to estimate CO2 usage/savings for ride taken
• Tokenize CO2 savings for ride and split between involved users
• Build relationships with reputable institutions looking to buy these carbon credits to offset their own CO2 footprints

• Such as: Climate Trade https://www.climatetrade.com/

• Leverage these institutions to build a treasury to hold the ADA that will back accrued rewards

Success looks like

• Completed architecture of Dapp and implementation on Cardano blockchain within 3 months
• Mass adoption of Dapp worldwide
• Decentralized access to carbon credits

Metrics to measure

• Number of app users
• Number of CO2 credits earned/ sold
• Increased Cardano user base

Roadmap (3 month plan)

• Research and develop strategy for tokenization on Cardano Blockchain
• Transfer Dapp to blockchain
• Test and launch finalized Dapp

Risk Management

If the Covid19 should extend over many months, it will limit people's desire to share rides and may therefore limit user adoption. This notwithstanding, our app requires a COVID affirmation that will provide riders a high degree of assurance that their ride pal is COVID free and will wear a mask during the ride.

If a partnership can be established with existing car sharing entities like Uber and Lyft, that will greatly accelerate adoption. In the absence of that, we will need to extend our time to market in order to implement our workaround.

Proposing Team

• Peter Opoku is a real estate asset manager, born and raised in Tema, Ghana. He graduated from Swarthmore College in 2010, and MIT in 2015 where he studied Mathematics and Real Estate Development, respectively. Peter and his brother Isaac co-founded House of Stole, Ghana Ltd in 2012, growing it into the premier online retailer of kente stoles and providing jobs for over 100 weavers in the Greater Accra and Volta regions.
• Emmanuel Sekyi is a full stack developer who was born and raised in Cape Coast, Ghana. He graduated from KNUST with a degree in Chemical Engineering and studied Artificial Intelligence at the Grailabs in Cape Town, South Africa. Emmanuel was the technology lead at Infinite Potentials in Berlin, Germany, prior to which he was a Software Engineer at Inflexion Capital where he worked on building the MTN IPO platform.
• Emmanuel and Peter have explored numerous tech ventures and have a shared passion for building the tech industry within Ghana.

Budget Breakdown (Seeking additional funding through Climate Trade)

Developers to architect/design: $12K
Marketing: $4K
Initial ADA treasury/reward fund: $4K

Partners

West Africa Decentralized Alliance (WADA) partnership will provide skilled technical architecture, training and oversight, as well as providing large network outreach to facilitate a widespread launch throughout Africa. https://wadalliance.org/