Paperless Cross-Border Trade

S U M M A R Y

This project would provide a free out-of-box solution running on Cardano and Atala PRISM to governments as well as providing them access to the TradeTrust platform, ecosystem, and services.  The TradeTrust Platform is an open-source framework for paperless commerce currently running on the Ethereum blockchain that handles over 10 million shipping transactions per year and is used by over 600 ports and terminals. The TradeTrust organization recognizes the limitations of running on Ethereum blockchain and published guidelines for moving their platform to other blockchains https://www.tradetrust.io/guidelines.

 W H A T  I S  T R A D E  T R U S T

Trade trust solves the problem of paper-based trade, particularly with customs. 

https://www.tradetrust.io

https://youtu.be/ddP6DmjCrJY

 TradeTrust Components

• Ecosystem: The foundation of TradeLens is its business network - shippers, freight forwarders, ports and terminals, ocean carriers, intermodal operators, government authorities, customs brokers, and more. They share information across the platform throughout a shipment's journey.
• Platform: The platform is accessible via an open API and brings together the ecosystem through a set of open standards. Powered by blockchain technology and IBM Cloud, the platform enables the industry to share information and collaborate securely.
• Applications and Services: An open marketplace with applications and services allows both TradeLens and third parties to publish fit-for-purpose services atop the TradeLens platform, fostering supply chain innovation and value creation.

Market Traction

TradeTrust has significant traction:

• The TradeLens ecosystem is comprised of over 100 diverse organizations.
• More than 10 million shipping events are registered every week.
• 55 ports and terminals are pushing data to TradeLens.
• Almost a dozen customs authorities are engaged to improve visibility, security, and automation of customs clearance.
• Data from up to 600 ports and terminals are captured by existing TradeLens members.

Adoption Drivers

• Increased efficiency - Paper-based trade is massively inefficient with the processing of paper-document often taking more time than the actual movement of goods. 
• Reduced Cost Processing often accounts for more than 1/5 the cost of a trade.
• Regulatory ComplianceRegulations originating out of organizations such as UNCITRAL and UN/CEFECT and several international agreements mandate the use of digital trade documents.

O P P O R T U N I T Y

TradeTrust is a one-stop on-ramp to paperless trade and is used by over 100 governments and organisations. While broadly adopted, the TradeTrust platform suffered from limitations stemming from its dependency on Ethereum blockchain and custom DID implementation. TradeTrust is welcoming to our proposal to migrate the TradeTrust platform to Cardano Plutus smart contracts. Their DID implementation to Atala PRISM will provide engineering support during the migration.

Access- We can work with 100 governments and organisations and over 600 ports. 

Reputation - Governments will have the first implementation of Cardano and can attest to its superior performance and lower cost. 

Reach Decision Makers- Experience trade expert Jonothan Koh will be onsite to educate the decision-makers on the advantages of Cardano on other government projects. TradeTrust comprises over 100 governments and organizations and over 600 ports.

Presence On An International Stage- Cardano will be represented in numerous trade organisations and conferences. 

T E A M    E X P E R I E N C E

https://www.cardanonocode.com/our-teams.html

Jonathan KOH (Principal)

Jonathan has over 30 years of experience in providing solutions in the trade arena. Jonathan has hands-on experience in over 40 digital trade/customs/trade facilitation programs globally. He is an expert in trade platforms commonly termed as "single window" which is one of the principal trade facilitation instruments advocated in the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement which is in force and ratified by over 170 countries. Jonathan served as the Project Director for the many customs/trade facilitation implementation projects including Kenya, Qatar, and Oman. He was heavily involved in consulting, serving as lead consultant to the Government of Hong Kong SAR for their next-generation Electronic Trade system. He was the lead consultant to the Government of Greece and helped to develop their National Trade Facilitation Strategy and Roadmap. He also led technical assistance/feasibility studies in many countries. He served as an expert resource for ASEAN Economic Community and helped to develop the ASEAN's Seamless Trade Facilitation Indicators.

Jonathan had also served as an expert resource to various international organisations in trade facilitation and policy issues. He was a visiting scholar with the International Monetary Fund, served as a member of the International Advisory Committee for the United Nations Network of Experts for Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (UNNeXT).

Timothy O'Brien (Principal)

Tim has 20 years experience building mission critical applications while working for Raytheon, Citi Group, Deutsche Bank, Bank of Tokyo, Danske Bank, Philips Health, Cerner Health, Norwegian Air Continental Airlines and most recently Google. Tim has worked with Cardano technology since 2019 and is a member of the Atala PRISM Pioneers program. Recently Tim's primary focus is making the power of the blockchain available to everyone. Tim has 6 years of blockchain development and runs blockchain development company with over 15 employers. Tim is a member of Singularity University.  

Interview with Tim O'Brien 

https://youtu.be/MCr-nJ0W43s

Craig Young (Advisor )

Craig is internationally known as an expert in international payments. As the former CTO of SWIFT and the current CTO of Diem Association Craig has worked tirelessly to make cross-border payments a reality. Craig honed deep technical knowledge, giving me a unique perspective as I've progressed to senior leadership positions. I've served in VP and C-suite roles at global telecommunications and financial services institutions including SWIFT and Verizon, running technology, product development, engineering, and cybersecurity operations.

Gerhard Eschelbeck (Advisor)

Widely regarded as one of the foremost experts on network and system security, Gerhard was invited to present his research in information security to the U.S. Congress, and he is also a frequent speaker at major industry conferences.

He was named one of InfoWorld's 25 Most Influential CTO's in 2003, 2004, and received this honor a third time in 2006. Gerhard is a frequent contributor to the SANS Top 20 experts consensus identifying the most critical security vulnerabilities. Gerhard is also a highly regarded author and is perhaps best known for publishing the "Laws of Vulnerabilities." He is one of the inventors of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and holds numerous patents in the field of managed network security. 

I M P A C T

How the proposal addresses the challenge

 This proposal covers a foundational Registry solution for Customs++& Border Control++. Countries that adopt our solution will have been able to streamline reduce their custom processes and increase the volume and speed of commerce. Increasing the speed at customs can remove a major obstacle for conducting cross-border trade particularly with the EU and US. The solution will be open source and available at zero cost to developing countries. 

 A D D R E S S E D    K P I

• Proposers commercial approach and negotiation strategy with different Governments - T**his project will see Cardano being an influential technology and business player in the TradeTrust platform used by**governments around the globe.
• Diversity of Dapp's use cases
• Proposers commercial approach and negotiation strategy with different Governments - We will work**within the TradeTrust organization to advise governments and showcase the advantages of Cardano.
• Participation and/or partnerships with other international organizations - We will work with TradeTrust and engage**100 diverse organizations.
• The number of countries covered, contracts signed - The 13 countries that currently use TradeTrust. 
• The number of Dapp users, registry accounts, transaction volumes - Over 10 million shipping events are registered every week. Adoption of our platform would include these transactions.  
• Proposers lead time on field research, Dapp development, and implementation
• Governments estimated lead time dependencies on red tape - TradeTrust is an out-of-box solution to paperless trade that can reduce the lead time of digitizing trade from years to weeks.
• Dapps impact on social/financial inclusion - P**hase I of the projects**prepare the way for phase II that will reduce the middleman costs of hiring import/export specialists and allow the small landholder farmer to sell across the border using more automated document processing.

W H A T  S U C C E S S  L O O K S   L I K E

3 Months - We will have completed the analyst and made the 6 documents below available on a public drive and will have posted the location to the catalyst_news channel of the Cardano Project Catalyst discord server. 

1. Project Initiation and Planning DocumentHigh Res UX Design Document
2. Project Setup - automated testing repositories
3. High-level architecture Document
4. Low-level Architecture Document
5. Testing Plan
6. Deployment Plan

6 Months - We will have finished integrating Cardano with TradeTrust and have a demo online of TradeTrust running on Cardano. Directions on how to install TradeTrust with Cardano will be available in our public GitHub repositories. News items on prominent trade journals will be published that describe the Cardano+TradeTrust product and describes its advantages. A link to our public GitHub repositories, all journal articles, and the running demo app will be posted on the  catalyst_news channel of the Cardano Project Catalyst discord server.

12 Months - Testing will be completed and 3 existing governments that incorporate TradeTrust will be onboarded to the Cardano implementation of TradeTrust. The governments of Ghana and Kenya will be either completely onboarded or undergoing trials. Joint papers will be issued by TradeTrust and Cardano on methods countries to migrate to paperless trade. We will have commenced phase II of the project to implement automation in paperless trade to facilitate cross-border farmer-to-market  

P R O J E C T   P L A N

The project will be divided into two stages Migration and Improvements. The requested budget is for phase I only. 

 Phase I (Migration To Cardano and Atala PRISM)

Technical Goals Migrate the TradeTrust Platform from Ethereum to use Cardano and Atala PRISM. Integrate TradeTrust with one B2B, B2G, or G2G SCM platform in Africa.

Business Development Goals (i) Expand the adoption of TradeTrust in Africa and the Middle East. (ii) See the adoption of the TradeTrust platform with one B2B, B2G, or G2G SCM platform in Africa.

Phase II ( Improve and Extend the TradeTrust platform): Automation of document processes, single window, adoption in Africa. 

 P H A S E  I - P R O J E C T   P L A N  &.  B U D G E T   B R E A K D O W N

Below  is our project plan and budget 

Milestone One

  Project Initiation Phase ( 6 weeks)

     List of Deliverables

1. Project Initiation and Planning Document
2. High Res UX Design Document
3. Project Setup - automated testing repositories
4. High-level architecture Document
5. Low-Level Architecture Document 
6. Testing Plan 
7. Deployment Plan 

  Human Resources

•  1 Architect Sr Engineer 
•  1 Sr. Engineer 
•  1 UX Designer 
•  1 Test Lead 
•  1 Technical Writer

Total Cost for Milestone One _________________________________$28,000  USD

Milestone Two

Project Development Phase ( 8 weeks)

List of Technical Deliverables

1. Document Store - create/update/delete 
2. Signing
3. Document Process Flow 
4. Configuring DNS - support for existing features
5. Support for NFT - support for existing features
6. Document viewer  
7. Title Escrow ( joint ownership)
8. GNS Capability
9. Testing - unit tests
10. SDK (JavaScript/Kotlin) 
11. Documentation - document dev ops and code 

Human Resources

• Architect 
• Sr Blockchain Engineer
• Sr Blockchain  Engineer 2 
• Jr Blockchain Engineer 
• Atala PRISM  Engineer 
• Front End Engineer 
• UX Designer
• Test Lead
• Technical Writer

Cost for Milestone Two  _________________________________________$88,960  USD

Milestone Three

• TradeTrust Community Introductions
• TradeTrust  Community Education 
• Prepare and Deliver Presentation For Kenya Government 
• Prepare and Deliver Presentation to Ghana Government 
• Prepare Deck decks and collateral to present to trade conferences
• Fees for 3 Trade Conferences 

Total Cost for Milestone Three __________________________________$30,000 USD

T O T A L   C O S T   P H A S E  I ___________________________________$146,960 USD

P U B L I C  L A U N C H   D A T E

Feb 1, 2022

P R O P O S E R (S)

Tim O'Brien  & Jonothan Koh  

 Business Development Goals Full Adoption by multiple countries. Full adoption by TBD

L I N K S

(1)  htps://www.tradetrust.io/news/electronic-transactions-act-amended-to-facilitate-electronic-transactions-providing-convenience-and-strengthening-singapore's-trade-competitiveness-in-the-digital-economy

(2)  https://www.imda.gov.sg/news-and-events/Media-Room/Media-Releases/2021/Worlds-first-digital-trade-financing-pilot-between-MLETR-harmonised-jurisdictions

(3) https://www.imda.gov.sg/news-and-events/Media-Room/Media-Releases/2021/Four-New-MOUs-Signed-at-the-2nd-Singapore---China-Shenzhen-Smart-City-Initiative-Joint-Implementation-Committee-Meeting-To-Accelerate-Digital-Economy-Collaborations

(4) https://www.imda.gov.sg/news-and-events/Media-Room/Media-Releases/2020/SWIFT-and-Singapores-IMDA-Join-Forces-to-Drive-Global-Trade-Digitalisation

(5)  https://www.imda.gov.sg/news-and-events/Media-Room/Media-Releases/2021/Australia-and-Singapores-blockchain-trial-shows-promising-results-for-reducing-transaction-costs

(6)  https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/adoption-of-uncitral-model-law-heralds-a-quiet-revolution-in-digital-trade

(7) https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/singapore-leading-the-way-in-promoting-digital-trade

(8) https://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2019/09/20/a-game-changer-for-global-trade

(9) https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/ditctab2020d4_en.pdf

(10) https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/reser_e/04_e_sin_yong_loh_tradetrust_wtoconf_02dec2019_final.pdf

(11) https://uncitral.un.org/en/texts/ecommerce

(12) https://events.development.asia/system/files/materials/2021/08/202108-trade-digitalization-tradetrust.pdf

(13) https://unece.org/trade/uncefact