Indigen BUILD (Blockchain Unabridged Indigenous Language Database)
Preserving cultures by saving native languages
1 January 2019 © Larrimar Tia, Project Architect and Developer
www.indigen.foundation | Read the Whitepaper
The United Nations (UN) declared 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL2019) to raise awareness and “appreciate the important contribution they make to our world’s rich cultural diversity.” Source: iyil2019.org
We at Indigen believe that in order to preserve native cultures and traditions, we must first preserve their languages. That is why this 2019, to coincide with the declaration by the UN as International Year of Indigenous Languages, we have started working on a project, commencing in the Philippines, which involves research and collection of indigenous languages to help revive and preserve various native dialects.
The project is called B.U.I.L.D. which is an acronym for Blockchain Unabridged Indigenous Language Database since we are using distributed ledger technology (DLT) as the repository of data due to the decentralized and immutable nature of blockchain and the ability to time stamp information and to keep track of historical records.
Many think that blockchain is just a hyped promise, with no real impact to our society. We want to prove them wrong, that is why we have committed to spend the whole 2019 and beyond developing one of our major blockchain projects that will impact both the social and economic aspects of the lives of the indigenous people. Once we successfully implement this project in the Philippines, it can be adopted easily on a global scale with the many indigenous population in almost all countries of the world.
Just like most of the blockchain projects currently, we too came up with our own utility coin called Indigen (IDG) cryptocurrency (which can be traded on a crypto exchange) to incentivize active participants who will contribute in the research and compilation of the many (and mostly forgotten) languages of the native people. We hope to entice all individuals — such as students, teachers and even community elders — to make our project a reality by sharing their time and knowledge in the pursuit of our objectives.
One of the key features of BUILD is the ability to reward users with IDG who contribute to our project such as adding entries into the database, upvoting entries, and so on.
Artificial Intelligence Will Play a Key Role
Furthermore, once the data have been recorded on the blockchain, we will apply A.I. or machine learning technologies to allow real time translations between native languages or tribal dialects. This way, we hope to bridge the gap between various tribes and eliminate the thought of cultural differences and language barriers.
This concept is easier said than done. A diverse technical skills will be employed in this area to implement this vision and a more sophisticated web application is going to be developed to actualize this feature.
BUILD is Just the Beginning
For a user to be able to input an entry into the database of indigenous languages, and for a user to upvote an entry, one must be registered and confirmed of their personal identity. This will ensure that all who participate are verifiable human beings and not bots that are simply spamming the system.
This leads us to another potential blockchain project: Digital Identity.
One of the major problems in most of the impoverished nations, especially among the native populations, is lack of proper identification systems which if solved, will have beneficial effects to both the person that needs to be identified and the party that needs to identify a certain person. In cases such as aid provision, loan application and various governmental services, a secure and trustworthy identification process of the beneficiary is very crucial in order to efficiently, cost-effectively, and securely deliver the necessary services or grant to a recipient. So a blockchain-based digital identity system will have huge impact on a global perspective.
From this alone, many other blockchain-based innovative projects can be developed, including an immutable registry of properties to protect the indigenous people from land grabbing by the rich, powerful and corrupt government officials; efficient supply chain management of indigenous products from the farmers to the consumers; fraud-free voting system and more.
There is so much more that needs to be written about this project on a technical level, so we will write the complete specifications on a separate article and they will be made available in progressive phases on our web site.
Native languages are slowly being forgotten by younger generations due to fast paced modernization. Once we start forgetting our native tongue, we will also start to forget our traditions, arts and history. Through BUILD, we hope to gain back the interest of the younger generations and help preserve their unique identity.
Please bookmark our web site if you want to keep track or participate in this project. Everyone, especially those who belong to the indigenous population, is welcome to join us in this ambitious project.
Indigen Token
To enable us secure the needed funding for this huge project, we created a token on the Ethereum platform called Indigen ST (IDGT) and launched a token sale or ICO which started in January 1, 2019. If you want to help us fund our project and own a share in our future business ventures, please visit the link below to learn all about the details of Indigen ST and how you can help us with our projects and pursue our advocacy for the benefit of the poor indigenous children.
Thank you for your time reading this article, and if you have not done so, we highly recommend you continue reading our Whitepaper.
