Centrality Monthly Update — March 2019
CEO Aaron McDonald shares key developments over the past month. To stay up-to-date on the progress of Centrality’s ecosystem, follow us on Twitter and our Telegram Announcements channel, plus join our community on Centrality’s Official Telegram, Instagram, Reddit and Facebook.
This March has seen Centrality travel from Auckland, to Vietnam, to China and Amsterdam! We’ve been sharing our ecosystem story nationally and across the globe. We’ve also had a focus on giving back in our communities this month with our team getting involved in awesome causes to support as we all work hard to #UNfuckTheWorld.
Centrality Accelerator powered by Lightening Lab
Last month we celebrated the final pitches from our six teams within the Centrality Accelerator at Demo Day. Teams had been hand picked in October 2018 and put through a rigorous programme to further enhance their business ideas, with Demo Day as the final test. If you couldn’t be with us, check out our highlight reel of the night here.
Since Demo Day teams have been spending the last three weeks following up with investors around the world.
Yabble — the dataplace where consumers can trade their data with brands is travelling to Singapore with NZTE for an investor event on 8 May. Yabble are capital raising now for launch into 5 new markets before the end of the year. They have a strong pipeline already and are gaining momentum in international markets.
CinemaLogic — are off to CinemaCon in Las Vegas in April. Here they will be talking to the major studios to present their cutting-edge technology to administrate the distribution of films globally. The blockchain technology uses smart contracts to improve both transparency and productivity for both sides of the cinema industry. CinemaLogic will be raising funds in early April, with clients on boarded and the pilot films ready to go.
CarbonClick — are on boarding early adopters to the platform and talking to impact investors who are keen on their idea, to encourage the teams to “press the green button” and offset their carbon footprint. Looking for impact investors who want to act fast in carbon offsetting all consumers’ purchases.
Ahau — have applied for significant grants to launch their indigenous platform to manage the $50 billion Maori economy in New Zealand. Think ancestry.com meets hubspot for indigenous peoples. They are seeking capital and already have opportunities in four other territories within the Pacific at launch — illustrating the truly global demand for this product. Seeking investors who share their vision for the social impact that this platform will deliver — both for Maori and all indigenous peoples.
Centrapass — are working with government, tourism bodies. payment merchants and media companies on their pilot which will launch soon in Queenstown, New Zealand. Lots of interest from the tourism market around filling the data black hole that exists for tourists and the ability to circumvent hefty booking commissions for providers.
Pocketful — are in full flight with developing their product. Their timing could not be better as open banking is taking shape in New Zealand and further afield. Industry feedback is that this product will be adopted very quickly. They are seeking investors with smart money who have experience and contacts in the payments industry.
Token Economics: It makes CENNZ
This month we posted our first blog in the series on Centrality’s token economics. It’s important to us to take our CENNZ holders on a journey, so I’ve provided an overview of what’s ahead for CENNZnet and the CENNZ token, and how we’re encouraging developers and partners to participate in our network. Check out the full article here.
Deloitte Asia Pacific Tech 500 celebration
Earlier this month I presented at the Deloitte Asia Pacific Tech 500 Celebration in Auckland alongside Deloitte Senior Consultants Darren Johnson and Jason Yang. The theme of this event was ‘technologies enabling disruption’, with a focus on the digital customer experience and innovative uses of blockchain technology. It was great to share our ecosystem story and innovation insights for some of the fastest growing tech companies in Asia and create a healthy discussion around emerging trends.
I also had the opportunity to network and celebrate with the Auckland-based businesses that made it onto the latest Deloitte APAC Technology Fast 500 index. It was great to connect with these awesome organisations, who are really shaking up the tech landscape.
Forbes Vietnam — Solving Big Problems
I was stoked to be back in one of the most exciting markets in the world, Vietnam, for a panel discussion with Forbes Tech Summit.
There are 40 million people unbanked in Vietnam, so the opportunity for next generation banking and fintech is huge.
In the panel we touched on the importance of trust and security in the industry, particularly when it comes to personal data and how to effectively optimise AI. Today’s technology companies must perform a balancing act between optimising and exploiting customer data.
We continue to develop our relationships in Vietnam and hope to announce some exciting strategic partnerships in the near future.
If you want to know more, you can read the full article on the panel discussion here.
McDonalds China Partnership
I traveled to China to meet with our Centrality partner, McDonalds China. The purpose of the trip was to visit Shanghai to participate in a workshop mapping out the next phase of development for joint solutions. We have many exciting opportunities ahead to roll out our technology to support their millions of customers. Stay tuned to hear how our partnership progresses.
Eat My Lunch
We decided to give back this month with some of the team from Centrality, PL^G and Global Chain volunteering at Eat My Lunch. 1 in 4 Kiwi kids (approx. 290,000) live in poverty and thousands go to school without lunch every day. Eat my lunch provides a service where for every lunch purchased, they give a freshly made school lunch to a Kiwi kid in need.
The team volunteered their time and helped to prepare over 2000 lunches for school children before heading into the office to enjoy an all team lunch from Eat My Lunch. We happily helped to feed some children in need as well as our amazing team in Auckland!
PreFab CoLab
Phil Williams, Technology & Ecosystem Strategy Manager, presented at the PrefabNZ Colab in Auckland which brought together industry experts interested in advancing the design and construction industry. Phil covered how our blockchain technology can be applied in the construction industry, namely logistics; connecting parties who do the same thing in different ways, provenance; proving that something is what it claims to be, and tokenisation. It was great to showcase Centrality in and industry hungry for new tech adoption.
Tech Stars Acardis City of 2030 Accelerator
iOMOB flew to Amsterdam as part of the three month Tech Stars Arcadis City of 2030 Accelerator kick off event.
Arcadis, a leading global design firm focussed on infrastructure, sustainable water, buildings, and environmental solutions, has partnered with Techstars on the accelerator program to support ten companies, including iOMOB, developing innovative ideas that will shape the future of cities.
Of the ten participants we are the only Spanish/Kiwi contingent with start-ups hailing from the Netherlands, U.S.A, Italy, Germany, and Australia.
The first week of the Accelerator was set up/retreat and an opportunity to get to know other teams. With the second week focused on “mentor madness” which was like speed dating for business, and teams picked the mentor they wanted to support their project. Through the Accelerator, we have access to Smart City experts who can help iOMOB scale their businesses with an eye on the future of cities.
Tomorrow’s cities need to be more sustainable places, focused on meeting the needs of their residents as well as reducing the impacts they have on the environment. As a growing population, dwindling global resources and a changing climate leading to mounting problems facing the cities of the future, the City of 2030 Accelerator is the perfect platform for us to further showcase and evolve our iOMOB offering to maximise ease of using of public transport, and minimising our future environmental footprint.
Causality
Last month Causality launched its new Crypto Sentiment Alert platform — a service which allows users to define social media sentiment alerts against the coins they’re following. But work on the product has not stopped! This month we’ve enhanced the platform to support Japanese and Korean languages, and we’ve added alerting support for some of the most popular cryptocurrency technical trading indicators such as Relative Strength Indicator (RSI) and Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD).
For more information or to sign up for the service, check it out here. You can also read more about our research on the Twitter cyrpto key influencers here.
Sylo
With the Sylo Beta DApp due for release in the first week of April, the team has been heads down on final development. We believe this release will show that decentralisation can truly become mainstream for users, and the team as well as the wider Centrality family are eager to seed it out and get feedback from our followers and communities. If you haven’t yet, go ahead and pre-register for the Beta now, otherwise you may be at the back of the line! The release will be rolled out in stages over the course of the month of April with a key focus on initial user feedback! Sign up for the Beta here.
Oxfam Trailwalker
Finally on 24th March four walkers from Centrality, PL^G and Global Chain completed in the 50KM Oxfam Trailwalker, held in Whakatane. The team raised over $3209NZD to help end the injustice of poverty. They finished at 10 hours 57 minutes, placing 18th and were still smiling as they crossed the finish line. We couldn’t be prouder.
