CEO Year-end Message 2018
The year 2018 is a transformative year for InfoCorp Technologies. We are many things, but we are most remembered as a down-to-earth blockchain startup with a heart. We have never once lost sight of our vision to bring equal opportunities to the underserved around the world.
FarmTrek
We rebranded CrossPay and have successfully released FarmTrek, an in-country network that enables unbanked to unlock the “Dead Capital” in their livestock to be used as collateral for loans, for Myanmar at the end of this year. Launching FarmTrek was never a walk in the park and rolling out a solution of this scale is unlike a flip of the switch. Being a green field solution, there were untold last mile challenges from floods, policy changes, user experience problems and others — more than 90% are operational and not technical in nature. This project is a true test of the team’s execution ability which, I am proud to say, we have demonstrated with flying colours.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/signing-ceremony-of-the-memorandum-of-understanding-between-infocorp-technologies-rgk-z-a-group-in-6c1bab5320fd
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/crosspay-rebrands-as-farmtrek-c36de2aac9ed
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/farmtrek-is-now-available-in-google-play-store-5748ab918fcb
Sentinel Chain
While FarmTrek development was funded through initial seed funding from InfoCorp Technologies, InfoCorp Foundation raised an investment round via an initial token sale of SENC for the development of Sentinel Chain. Sentinel Chain is a cross-border B2B marketplace for livestock-backed financial services. The development roadmap for Sentinel Chain has been adhering closely to the whitepaper and is slated to complete by Q1 2019. The combination of FarmTrek and Sentinel Chain using a hub-and-spoke design has created an award-winning business model that is innovative, sustainable and scalable.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/sentinel-chain-and-poa-network-form-strategic-partnership-for-joint-development-of-erc20-to-erc20-2ab84789ec31
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/sentinel-chain-a-bridge-to-two-worlds-5a74947d1ed0
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/important-announcement-6f88a10b40f3
Token Price
We have seen this year that the crypto market has demonstrated the irrational exuberance that brought down the financial world in 2008. The tumultuous crypto market has brought crisis to many token sales driven projects. Without real-world adoption, most token prices will be driven entirely by speculative forces. We do not, and cannot, interfere with the supply and demand of token price. Our top priority has remained simple — be the first company in the world to deliver mainstream adoption of blockchain. It is important not to get ahead of ourselves in thinking that this will happen overnight. Let us not forget that it took bitcoin almost a decade to reach its current status. Let us not forget that 2 pizzas used to cost 10,000 bitcoins in 2010.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/sentinel-chain-explained-senc-dbd439d4ee69
Marketing and Publicity
We have often been known to be a low-profile project and that is aligned with the down-to-earth nature of our business. Sentinel Chain was formed through organic effort and our focus in social impact comes first. Although we have done a lot in terms of branding, marketing and public relations, e.g., invitation to speak at Consensus and appearance in CNBC, it was never our intention to shill and hype. As the dust settles, ultimately it will not be about which blockchain project has made the loudest noise but rather which one has survived the consolidation. The time for talking the talk is long over and success can only be shown by walking the walk.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/monthly-highlights-november-5945eed6b9e7
https://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-singapore-2018/videos (video #16)
https://youtu.be/RBgbLU8-R8Q (watch from 43m:28s)
Entrepreneur of the Year (EYA)
Bagging two awards from EYA, namely “New Entrepreneur of the Year” and “Social Contribution”, is reflection of trust accorded to InfoCorp, and quality of Sentinel Chain as a blockchain project solving real world problems, and creating win-win solutions with new business opportunities. We are grateful and honoured to receive these awards from organisations as established as the Association of Small & Medium Enterprises of Singapore and illustrious as Rotary Club of Singapore.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/roy-lai-ceo-and-founder-of-infocorp-bags-new-entrepreneur-of-the-year-and-social-contribution-6abcfbdedd54
https://youtu.be/GRY_6IfapuU
https://youtu.be/iokEXrFCNB8
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
InfoCorp is a technology company with a strong social focus. As described by the Rotary Club of Singapore, the Sentinel Chain is “one giant CSR project”. While we are addressing long term upliftment, it is also important not to overlook urgent immediate needs. In August, Myanmar experienced one of the most severe floods in their recent history. To help alleviate hardship of the Myanmarese, we organised a small donation drive, the Myanmar Flood Relief Programme that ran from 13th to 15th August 2018. Through these efforts, we raised a total of 30.32 ETH, which we converted to SGD11,709 / USD8,500. We hope in time, more of our community will see the win-win proposition of ‘giving back’ to society together with us, into the community that we are all are invested in.
https://medium.com/sentinelchain/myanmar-food-relief-programme-2476a609363
https://youtu.be/X9hynfMJUxc
https://youtu.be/8X0eX_jw2_g
Our Road Ahead
The year 2019 will be about Sentinel Chain ecosystem. As an ecosystem hub, Sentinel Chain cannot succeed on its own. Sentinel Chain relies on network effect in the form of creating multiple FarmTrek markets for it to grow. Firstly, we aim to expand FarmTrek into other markets besides Myanmar. Secondly, we have created an ERC20-to-ERC20 bridge in preparation for working with financing partners and towards our roadmap targets to establish end-to-end financing. We have been working fervently on leads in preparation for the above and further plans will be announced in due course.
We’ve been faithfully delivering Weekly Progress Updates to you. To streamline our processes and deliver better communication, as well as to avoid information overload, this will be discontinued. In its place, we will share Monthly Updates that you can look forward to on the first Friday of every month, e.g., December 2018 updates will come out Jan. 4th, 2019.
Happy New Year!
Roy Lai
CEO, InfoCorp Technologies
Founder, Sentinel Chain
InfoCorp Technologies Pte. Ltd. is a fintech company that provides the infrastructure to accelerate financial inclusion to unbanked and underserved communities through the use of blockchain technology. It designs solutions for small bank consortiums in emerging countries to facilitate inter-bank transactions using distributed ledger technologies and provides consultancy services to clearing house and central banks on implementations and testing of real-time payment systems, and also to corporate clients on implementations and operations of distributed ledger technologies for production use.
Sentinel Chain is a blockchain-based international marketplace for cross-border financial services and the world’s first platform to accept the use of livestock as collateral. Taking a unique approach to the last mile problem of financial inclusion, the Sentinel Chain model establishes livestock provenance through the creation of livestock insurance on blockchain — the registration of livestock provenance on blockchain provides the unbanked with a new opportunity: the real possibility of accepting livestock as ‘collateral’ for loans. Sentinel Chain is a project by InfoCorp Technologies.
Website: https://sentinel-chain.org
Website (InfoCorp): https://infocorp.io
Website (InfoCorp) (Spanish): https://infocorp.io/es/
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