The RightMesh Roadmap
Our plans to connect the next billion through decentralized mobile mesh networks.
The Mission
Internet accessibility is a human right, as defined by the United Nations in 2015. Yet, 3.9 billion people (56% of the world) are unconnected because of a lack of infrastructure or affordability constraints.
RightMesh believes in the right to connectivity, and aims to put the power of connectivity in the hands of people. RightMesh is a decentralized mobile mesh networking platform using blockchain technology and tokenization. Our mission is to connect the next billion people through mobile mesh networks.
At the heart of RightMesh is a powerful and reliable software networking stack that can be easily integrated into any application without additional hardware — the devices (smartphones and IoT devices) themselves form the infrastructure. Using the SDK, developers can integrate mesh networking technology into their existing or new apps, enabling multihop peer-to-peer connectivity between nearby devices to create self-forming mesh networks. And participants in active mesh networks can be rewarded for sharing their internet data connection and providing other resources (like storage, battery, processing, etc.) in the network.
RightMesh is the sharing economy for data and device resources. A network that is more accessible, self-governed, encourages participation, and provides freedom of choice will lead to better networks and ultimately, a more connected and better world.
Our mission at RightMesh is by no means a trivial one. In fact, like the most important missions that intend to make long lasting and positive impacts on the world, it is, by, its very nature, challenging and difficult to execute. This begs the question then — ‘why even bother?’
There are, of course, benefits of working on a difficult project — the thrill of a challenge, having a chance to work on the latest technology in creative ways, and building a product no one has really built before. All of this together can be an exhilarating ride.
“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” — Walt Disney
But what really keeps the entire team driven towards executing the project is the opportunity to make a real and positive impact to humanity, and such opportunities come only once in a lifetime — if that. Our team has seen, first-hand, the growing digital divide that exists in many parts of the world — in places like Bangladesh and Cuba, and even right here in Canada. And we’re on a mission to narrow that divide by putting connectivity in the hands of people.
Indeed, this is a challenging project. It requires a dedicated and talented team to work on it. It requires massive commitment to keep building and iterating, even when there are failures. It requires a passionate community to participate and help grow the network. But, despite the uphill challenges, we’re also certain that this is not an impossible dream.
While our initial mission is to connect the underserved areas of the world with relevant applications, our longer term vision is to see mesh data networks merge and thrive on a global scale as a better alternative to today’s oligopolistic providers. A revolutionary change like this; however, does not happen overnight, and this holds true for many projects in the new, decentralized world. We are still in the early stages, as the core infrastructure is still being built, but we need to make incremental steps towards a decentralized future.
In this post, we cover our strategy and approach to achieve ‘progressive decentralization’ over the next several years. A subsequent post will describe our near-term plans for the next 2 years , specifically around platform development and market development.
Following our mantra of “doing things right”, we believe a roadmap is much more than just posting a few key milestones with approximate quarterly dates. An informative roadmap is one that not only lists the key milestones, but also explains the strategic direction of the project that will help achieve the vision.
The Roadmap
Our approach is to move towards our goal in six stages— ideation, initiation, evolution, stability, growth and revolution — with each phase having its own distinct purpose and goal.
1. Ideation [2015 / 12 mos.]
Goal: Understand the problem, understand the users, and understand the markets.
The start towards building a mobile mesh networking platform actually goes back to mid 2014, when our development team in Bangladesh created a mobile app prototype (in their own free time) that allowed peer to peer messaging and file sharing amongst themselves without requiring an internet connection. What was even more fascinating was the fact that they had built this prototype to address their own problem of slow and unpredictable connectivity. They were creating a better and more efficient way of connecting with each other.
And that was the beginning of this journey. Rationalizing that there would be areas similar to Bangladesh that require a better way to connect, our first step was developing and launching a mobile application called YO! that allowed direct content sharing between friends, and which grew to 1M+ downloads in countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Mexico and Cuba.
While YO! is different from RightMesh and did not use mesh networking technology, it provided tremendous insights into smartphone user behavior in different markets and into the different ways users connect today.
2. Initiation [2016 / 12mos.]
Goal: Design and build the core foundation for RightMesh
In the year of testing and iterating YO!, we went to various markets to talk to people about the app — end users, businesses, and institutions — and, interestingly, everyone had their own idea of how they could use the application to solve a unique problem they had. We slowly began to understand that it wasn’t really the application, but the underlying technology which allowed users to communicate directly, that was extremely valuable.
Our “aha!” moment came soon after, in October 2015, when we realized that we needed to build a platform — a platform that developers could use to integrate mesh networking technology into their own apps in a simple way. We also realized that building a platform and a new networking protocol was not easy, and that we needed the best technical skills in the world to design a platform like this.
Fortunately, soon after that realization, we met Dr. Jason Ernst, a Ph.D in Wireless Mesh and Heterogeneous Wireless Networks from the University of Guelph, who was incidentally just wrapping up his own venture and looking for his next challenge. After a few discussions and a visit to our office, it did not take much time for Jason to pack his bags and move to the West Coast to take on this mighty responsibility as Chief Networking Scientist for the RightMesh platform.
It was in this first year of initiation that the core foundation of the mesh networking protocol was designed and built. The core networking libraries that allowed discovery of nodes and routed messages between nodes were created using Wi-Fi as the underlying network link between devices. Initial demo apps were created to test the stack, and an internal alpha release of the library was released to our apps team in Bangladesh to start creating their own apps.
It was in August of that same year, 2016, that we first started getting immersed in the blockchain, and in Ethereum specifically. Our first entry into Ethereum was actually to solve our problem of determining unique node identities in the mesh network; however, that eventually led us down that path of exploring how the blockchain could be used as a platform to provide trust in the network and how tokens could be used as economic incentives for participation. And we haven’t looked back since.
3. Evolution [2017–18 / ETA 18–24mos.]
Goal: Complete all features of the platform including the necessary tools for developers to start using RightMesh. Build experimental apps and test.
We are currently in the midst of the evolution stage as we work towards completing the platform features and getting it ready for a public beta release in Q2 2018.
At the beginning of this phase, we added some key individuals to the team; notably, Dr. David (Zehua) Wang, our Applied Engineering Research Scientist. David has made significant improvements to the routing algorithms of the mesh networking stack and heads up the development of the MESH token protocol.
Over the past year, the platform has grown from a set of libraries to a full-fledged developer SDK, including a developer portal and associated APIs. The SDK was launched into private beta in late 2017, and our apps team has been building initial experimental apps such as Flare — a RightMesh enabled emergency app designed to provide offline communication when ISPs and telecom providers are down.
Much work was also done on the MESH token protocol and on a design that would allow micropayments to occur on the network. While initial work was based on a sidechain design, the design eventually shifted to a µRaiden based payment channel design that would allow all RightMesh nodes to be completely decentralized.
Work completed so far, explained in more detail by Jason in this year-end summary post:
- Adding Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct to the link layer in the networking stack
- Routing and data transfer optimizations
- Developer Portal & SDK
- End-to-end encrypted data between nodes
- Superpeer node development
- Communication between disparate meshes
- Payment channel design
- Experimental apps being developed.
Work in progress and to be completed leading to the SDK public beta release include:
- Autonomous node role selection
- Completion and integration of token protocol into the RightMesh stack
- Development of RightMesh wallet and settings UI in Android
- Automated testing & performance evaluation framework
- Testing of experimental apps in Bangladesh and Northern Canada.
4. Stability & Fit — [2018–2020 / ETA: 12–18 mos.]
Goal: Harden the mesh network and mesh token protocols. Find token-utility fit in developing markets.
After releasing the public beta version of the SDK , the next essential steps will involve necessary refinement of the networking and token protocols post field testing and finding token-utility fit for the platform. The intent will be to focus on a few key markets or constrained regions to determine stability and fit on localized mesh apps before growing to further regions. As Bangladesh and Canada are home markets to RightMesh, they are natural markets to start with.
Some of the main projects that will be part of this stage include:
Platform Upgrades: This entails the deployment and testing of more RightMesh networks in the field and gathering data and analytics to monitor network performance and token usage. Data gathered will be published to the community along with a series of proposals for enhancements and protocol upgrades that will be determined based on community feedback and consensus. As refinements are made to both the networking protocol and the token protocol, the software should also improve in stability, reliability and in its function to scale.
Token-Utility Fit: Equally important to the technical stability of the platform is ensuring token-utility fit. Similar to product-market fit, token-utility fit ensures the purpose of the MESH token and the associated token economic models are effective to incentivize and reward participants in the ecosystem — RightMesh nodes, end users, superpeers, developers, content providers, and others — while encouraging network growth. As with the networking protocol, token economics will also involve testing, gathering data and refinement of the model, again based on community consensus.
Growing the Developer Community: Advancement to developer tools and growing the developer ecosystem through community events such as hackathons and meetups will be key to platform adoption. The more developers who are brought onto the platform, the more localized RightMesh apps that are made available, which in turn will encourage more users to join the network.
Partnership Development: While the platform develops and matures, it will also be critically important to form strategic partnerships with entities and organizations that can benefit from RightMesh technology and in turn contribute to the growth and adoption of the network such as:
- apps, brands and agencies wanting to reach extend their reach or enter into previously unreachable markets
- non-profits with specific use cases for underserved parts of society
- charitable institutions offering mesh-enabled smartphones for the unconnected
- decentralized and blockchain projects whose success depends on being able to digitally reach previously unconnected users.
4. Growth — [2019–2023 / ETA: 24–48 mos.]
Goal: Global growth of RightMesh nodes and community networks.
Once the platform is technically stable to scale, and token-utility fit has been achieved, the next step in the journey will be to focus on the growth of RightMesh networks across devices, regions and users.
Growth of the network and ecosystem can be looked at from a few dimensions:
Evolving New RightMesh Functions: The first RightMesh networks will be most suited to lightweight communications such as text alerts and low bandwidth applications. However, in this phase, with the protocol more stable and with the collaboration of other peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS, new types of data functions can be built into the network that will allow for richer communication. Another new function is projected to be general-purpose internet sharing — the ability for a user in the mesh network to perform any internet function and not just within the constraints of an app.
Extending RightMesh to IoT and Other Devices: While R&D work on porting RightMesh to other languages, devices and platforms will have started in the previous phase, this phase will entail taking these developments to the field to test multi-device interoperability in RightMesh networks.
Growth of Regional Mesh Networks : In the growth phase, mesh networks will begin to form more quickly and be more prevalent at certain ‘hotspots’ (i.e. locations of high density) where localized apps will thrive. In addition to the growth and abundance of mesh networks, expanding developer ecosystems to new communities and regions will accelerate the growth of mesh networks in greenfield locations.
Backward Integration with Decentralized ISPs: While RightMesh is initially focused on building mesh networks for the last mile, the journey to attain complete decentralization will not be complete unless the source of external networks into RightMesh is from a decentralized network. This could involve RightMesh collaborating with like-minded projects such as Althea, Ammbr, Orchid, or goTenna to form an interoperability standard, publishing an RFC or IETF draft around interoperability, or extending the project to introduce superpeers as service providers.
OEM Partnerships: We believe the integration of the RightMesh stack at the OEM and smartphone layer will be a vital element towards widespread adoption and growth of the network. Partnership efforts will begin early on towards meeting this goal, and the hope is that by this time we will have enough analytical data to show the adoption of regional RightMesh networks to be attractive to OEMs.
5. Revolution [2024 and beyond]
Goal: The existence of vast and available decentralized mobile mesh networks — across all markets and across all devices.
This stage represents the fulfillment of our vision — to have an ecosystem of mobile mesh networks thriving across developing and developed regions and across a variety of devices. These mesh networks could then be interconnected through the RightMesh superpeers to form a global mesh network.
Devices will have autonomous capabilities to perform different functions in the mesh network, whether that is to relay information through the network, negotiate with other devices for collaborative work, offer processing power or storage capacity into the network, or fetch media or files from IPFS or the decentralized web. These devices could include smartphones, IoT devices, sensors, connected vehicles, and more. In all of these scenarios, the token-based transactions between devices and entities that represent an exchange of value on the network will automatically be facilitated by the underlying protocols while being completely transparent to the end users. It just happens.
It is this phase that is the most fascinating to us at RightMesh, because while we are builders, we are also dreamers, and we love to dream big about future possibilities that seem impossible in today’s world.We realize achieving this dream will take years — perhaps 6 years or more — But achieving this dream requires incremental and well-executed steps that will lead us to the next step. Slow and steady will win the race.
Creating A Better Future
The RightMesh project began because of our ambition to solve a problem that is prevalent in today’s world. The internet revolution that the world has witnessed in the last several decades has left behind billions of people, and they do not stand to gain the benefits that digital access and information can provide.
Addressing this massive problem is far from trivial and requires concurrent work in multiple areas — building a mobile mesh network that is reliable and scalable for its users and devices, building a token economy that benefits participants in the network for their work and participation, engaging developers to build relevant and localized apps for their home markets, and developing partnerships that can help grow the overall ecosystem.
The end result however, is to create a network that is created, managed and governed for the people and by the people — offering more control, choice, and freedom in users connect with their devices and what they consume.
The technology of RightMesh is new and complex and requires substantial effort to build. Each phase in the roadmap consists of individual mega projects that must be executed with careful planning and consideration. We are aware, however, that unexpected surprises are par for the course in software development, and unexpected surprises could pop up that may or may not require us to alter the path we tread. For this reason, the roadmap should be looked at as a living and breathing document that will be updated as move forward in our implementation plans.
We look forward to the feedback, support and involvement of the community to help achieve the mission of the RightMesh project and to help create a better future for all of us.
Disclaimer: This document is for informational purposes only, and may change as the RightMesh technology develops over time.
