Will RightMesh Really Change The World? (Part 1)
To make a real impact on humanity, you need to be addressing a real problem.
Let’s start with this: RightMesh is undoubtedly a complex and challenging project to execute.
No kidding. One could argue, however, that most projects in the blockchain and crypto space are inherently complex just because the space is so new and there are still so many unknowns. So, what’s different about this project?
Well, the RightMesh project has several unique challenges: the mesh networking technology which is core to the project is nascent and expensive to build, our initial target markets are conventionally unexplored, and the underlying token dynamics are unproven. With such high risks, most people would look at what we are building with skepticism and disbelief and probably look the other way.
In spite of being fully aware of the challenges, why are we moving forward with this audacious mission? The answer is simple.
We are driven by the impact this project can make in the world.
I can hear you thinking now “Here we go again, another one of those BS projects out to ‘change the world, blah, blah, blah.’” Yes, I know. I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase many times already from every other blockchain project out there.
But, we firmly believe that if we execute this project right, and if the network grows over time with more participants, the resulting impact the project will have is enormous.
In this series, we will explore the impact RightMesh can have on the world and let you answer for yourself “Will RightMesh change the world?” by looking at four different ‘pictures’ that may not be so apparent when you look at the surface of the project.
Picture One: RightMesh is building a new kind of network — and it’s one that’s needed right now.
The origin of the RightMesh platform goes back several years to 2014. At the time, our apps development team in Bangladesh was working on a separate unrelated product for the parent company of RightMesh, Left.
The team was so constrained with their internet connection that whenever they had a Skype call with us in Canada, the developers essentially had to stop any work they were doing in order to preserve enough bandwidth for the call. As developers, they were challenged to find a better way.
What they developed was a mobile app prototype that allowed direct peer-to-peer transfer of data between two mobile phones without an internet connection. The prototype was interesting, but what was especially interesting was the inspiration behind the idea.
It was their attempt to solve their own pain point — the challenge of communicating and sending information to each other through slow and unreliable internet connections.
Since then, we have been on a mission to design and build a new kind of network: one that will connect users directly with just the devices they own and no other physical infrastructure; one that will benefit communities which cannot access conventional networks today because the infrastructure does not exist or, more so, because it is too expensive; a network that is is run by the people, for the people, without being at the mercy of a central oligopolistic provider.
The need for a new and different way to connect is obvious.
Our first foray into addressing the problem was through a local content-sharing application called YO! which saw 1M downloads across Bangladesh, Colombia, Guatemala, Cuba, Iran and India. With YO!, users could share cached content located on their device with other friends nearby (up to 7 people) directly without using the internet. While YO! was not built to run on a mesh network, it led to a deep understanding of those markets and the potential for mesh networking use cases in these markets.
Similar to YO! is SHAREit, a popular file sharing app that has more than 500M downloads of its Android app on Google Play. In spite of its immense traction, it is an app that is rather unheard of in the developed world- when you check the top countries of usage for the app, not a single ‘developed’ country shows up on the list.
History has shown that the greatest adoption of a technology will come from the users who have the greatest need for it. Developing nations have a desperate need for the economic, educational and social benefits of connectivity right now. We believe we will have the greatest impact focusing on solutions for these communities first. We also believe there is tremendous potential for RightMesh in more developed and established markets, especially for things like machine-to-machine and IoT type of communication, and we will focus on those markets in time.
To have the highest impact, we must focus initially on building for a community that needs a solution now.
In summary, it is clear and obvious that there is a significant problem with connectivity — or lack of connectivity — in the world right now, most drastically in the developing world. RightMesh’s mobile mesh network is designed to address the problem by changing the way the world connects.
The next question to ponder is: Is the solution just providing connectivity through mesh networks? We’ll talk about this more in our next post — stay tuned for Part Two.
