Transcript from Sparkster’s AMA (Jan 18th 2019) — Sparkster’s CEO answers questions from the community
This week, Sparkster’s CEO, Sajjad Daya, answered questions prepared by the community. Here is a transcribed copy of the live AMA.
Updates from CES
Last week I attended CES which is the Consumer Electronics Show, this is the largest tech conference in the United States. The primary objectives of this conference was to understand where the industry is going, what people are working on and where we might find opportunities to partner with people or to work with people in different industries.
This would essentially bring use cases to our platform and in our cloud. So there are a number of interesting industries that I discovered that I think will have a lot of potential for us to work with, for example the autonomous vehicle industry. I think this is a particularly interesting industry.
There is a lot of value we’ve built in our decentralized cloud that we will be exploring and we have made a number of contacts in that industry as a result of that conference. Collaborative virtual reality is another interesting industry I came across at the CES, although I think that this is a little bit in the future and the industry itself is not yet ready. It does seem that there’s a lot of interest in using a low latency network to facilitate those type of areas across large geographic areas, so we have spoken to a number of people in that industry to understand the technical feasibility of something like that and what would be required.
Other areas of interests are, smart cities and and processing data that’s collected in the city about parking, pollution and other locally collected data. We think there is value here and what we are doing with the decentralized cloud in the application to those particular areas of interest.
There’s are many opportunities that explore a number of industries that we are exploring following CES.
While I have been at CES, the team has been hard at work resolving some issues and some challenges with the network, hopefully you are seeing that the stability of the network is improved and is continuing to be improved. As we identify some issues and other issues were fixed, for example, if you click on the block now you can see some basic information that’s being returned from the network about the block, so there’s more coming, but you can see that we are in a phase where you are able to monitor the work that we are doing publicly and that was really one of the intention of the Alpha, the other intention obviously is for us to be able to develop use cases and work with people to develop these cases.
So that is where we stand and what’s happened since we last spoken.
I have received a few questions in advance of this week’s AMA so I’ll address those first:
Updates on Unlock
we still don’t feel like the markets really reached satisfiable conditions so we’re not yet looking at unlocking. It is potentially February, but that is not set in stone. It will be this year, this is what I expect in this point in time.
1. What part of this current sparkster decentralised cloud mainnet is operational?
Everything is operational, so that would be:
- Masternodes.
- Masternode voting — that’s automatically making themselves masternodes and the management of that process.
- Compute nodes: that execute the code verification nodes then verify transactions
-Storage nodes: that store information that in the process of a transaction.
That whole process today is live and as part of our alpha main net. The Alpha is only one cell, the beta will be more than one cell.
2. When will the sparkster mining app for the cell be available as described in the white paper.
Right now we are focused on stability, we are focused on looking for some use cases, while we are working on use cases, that part of that development will likely be in the latter half of this year.
3. Are any of the nodes in GitHub deployable and will they connect to the mainnet?
What we have got on Github right now is the version of the nodes prior to the changes that we have been making since the launch that improve stability, and resolves issues. You can download those nodes from Github, you can spin them up, we haven’t yet provided instructions on how to connect to our network, but it is possible to do that or you could spin up your own network with the nodes that are there on Github today.
4. When will the sparkster platform get released? And what does “public release of full scale support to build AI powered apps” mean in reference to the roadmap.
at Mobile World Congress 2018 (This is Europe’s largest tech convention) last year we demonstrated artificial intelligence being built and used the inside of our no-code platform.
Here is the demo. This uses facial recognition to open a door lock that was built with no code. We have not done work on that since, there are things that come at a cost, we introduced masternodes which was not on the roadmap. AI powered apps is one of the things that we didn’t get to further develop but what we have got today is what you can see there, which is facial recognition using artificial intelligence.
5. When will the sparkster marketplace be launched? Roadmap says May of last year
The marketplace will be launched with the platform and the platform will be launched this quarter
6. What happened to the public release of our mobile app supporting sensory inputs?
I think we should clarify something, we published this roadmap in February 2018 and we have not updated it. This is one of the projects that we chose to drop, because we did not find sufficient value meaning in this and that we are not the only people that have produced a mobile app that allows you to interact with the census or would have produced and therefore we decided not to pursue that particular project. it’s easier for us to integrate somebody else’s product, than to go and reinvent the wheel, there is not meaningful value add there if you will. So that’s one of the things that we dropped this year
7. Couldn’t find the verification node module in GitHub, is this not required anymore? Readme file says this might be part of the compute node? Please clarify
Yes, we essentially combined the compute node and the verification node into one node because they perform similar activities, so what happens is that when you spin up a node you choose whether that node is a compute node or verification node and depending on what type of node it is it gets used in that capacity, and so what this allows us to do is to simplify the deployment process, reduce the size of the code base so it’s more manageable and to reuse a lot of the things that we’ve got that are shared between the compute node the verification node. so essentially the compute node has has the capability to act as a as a verification node and then vice versa.
8. Can the use of code deployer and executor be explained?
This is what Sparkster’s decentralized cloud is, it is an environment for running code and an environment for building and running applications. Those applications consist of blocks of code, functions, if you will it’s an environment for running functions.
You can take your function and you can deploy your function (this means you can you can upload it if you will) to the network using the code deployer and then you can use or interact with that function using the executor. So it’s like the contract, when you first deploy a contract you get back a contract address. Similarly, when you deploy a function you get back a reference which allows you to identify the location of that particular function or an identifier for the function.
When you want to interact with it, as we showed in the demo with the temperature we called a particular ID, that is the reference of that function. We passed it input parameters in that case, it was a hundred Fahrenheit which it converted to Celsius. That’s the job of the executor, so what is a function? a function is essentially a component which is the logic or the behavior of a component of software and software generally is built up of small functions.
You will find functions are everywhere, they are ubiquitous, and to give you an extreme example, your washing machine has a function and the delicate wash function that describes or inistructs to the hardware how to perform a delicate wash and it’s a function you interact with. If you want a delicate wash and the spin speed to be 1600 rpm, you would call a function call
Internally. What’s happening inside of the washing machine is something analogous to calling a function called “delicate wash” and passing an input parameter which is 1600 rpm for the spin speed of the of the drum. Similarly we call the function: called something like convert to Celsius or Fahrenheit to Celsius and we passed an input parameter of 100 Fahrenheit.
So this gives you an idea that functions are micro components of software and how you build software is with components and there’s something analogous to functions, kind of called methods but nonetheless it’s the same sort of principle where you’ve got these small components that are then composed into larger components that can call other smaller functions and this is how you build software overall.
What we are showing you is an environment what the Sparkster decentralized cloud does today, is this an environment for running and executing functions whether they’re composite functions which aggregate smaller functions or they’re you know the most basic functions in an application and also we have the ability to interact with documents and documents are essentially data storage, where you store data and retrieve data. Combining these two concepts together, you’ve got essentially the building blocks that you need to be able to define or build any type of software that you you can conceive.
That’s really what you’re seeing in Sparkster’s decentralized cloud today.
9. In the roadmap, it is shown that the below goals were to be met by Q4 2018 — do we have any approximate timelines as to when each of these will be achievable? Are they being worked on; or are they essentially ready?
- Full-scale support to build AI-powered apps beyond just computer vision
The only thing that we’re able to support today in the platform, not in the cloud, but in the platform is computer vision. Due to time constraints, we have not been able to extend beyond computer vision.
- The release of the mobile app supporting sensory input
Please refer to question 8.
- The release of the platform for ARM devices
We showed our work for ARM devices at the ARM Tech Con and there was an extensive demo (which is on our YouTube channel as well) showing what we’re doing for ARM and the vision we have.
- The release of platform support for Arduino and ESP devices supporting codeless embedded application development.
That is the extension of the Arduino in ESP environment, this is what we built for for the ARM Tech Con.
10. Where is Sparkster going to market/promote the project?
Sparkster’s platform and cloud are two different worlds.
Sparkster decentralised cloud:
What we are looking for are industries verticals that we can add meaningful value to that particular vertical and participate in the development of that vertical.
I mentioned earlier on an example of that would be autonomous vehicles:
Autonomous vehicles is a major emerging industry we want to be part of, we want to make sure that what we participate in and the value we are bringing is part of an emerging industry simply because it allows us to grow as the industry grows.
We want Sparkster to be able to become part of the fundamental infrastructure of that emerging industry. That is critical, and it’s very difficult to penetrate an industry as the industry reaches maturity but it’s the it’s the opposite, when an industry is in its nascent all or emerging form right which is really where autonomous vehicles is there’s a lot of opportunities for us to contribute value with this Sparkster’s decentralized cloud for example, with vehicles communicating with infrastructure and infrastructure making decisions about how to reroute traffic, etc so this is essentially a major area of focus for us, for both myself and Shabeer. That’s an example of what we are looking at for the cloud. This is an area focus what we are looking at in terms of the platform is simply use cases. We are looking at how we can help entrepreneurs build applications, how we can help companies streamline processes, how can how we can enable individuals to be able to bring for example IOT use cases to reality, so those are particular verticals that where we will be targeting.
A lot of this will be social media marketing. I think there’s a question coming later on about where specifically and how we are going about that. A lot of that’s going to be social media but some will be traditional. People still read The Verge Magazine, people read it online but I don’t consider that to be social media marketing. But this is just a small example, so that’s what we are doing, what we are planning and what we are working on from a marketing perspective on the different categories.
But everything that we are doing in terms of marketing is about user and customer acquisition, that is the core focus of all of our efforts when it comes to marketing it is customer and user acquisition.
11. It seems no code platform is ready, based on the demo’s during the multiple demonstration videos from April-July last year, including Balina AMA. I’d like to know about how long it’ll take to integrate it with the blockchain component & cloud. I’d say it shouldn’t take so long.
The platform will be released this quarter, in terms of integrating with the cloud, two products are being built in parallel, so once that we have got to a place where we are in the beta aspect of the cloud, the platform will be integrated with the cloud.
Essentially the things that are built and running on the cloud, or internally in the platform will be transferable to the cloud. So we are probably looking at the latter half of this year
for us to see that.
12- How long will the marketing process last? 1–2 months? 4–6 months? A year?
The marketing process is indefinite it goes on customer acquisition is something that we’ll be doing for the foreseeable future. It’s not time bound or limited in some timeframe, but it is important that before we go out there and invite people to start using our products, that they are in a condition that’s stable and in a condition that we’ve essentially worked through the challenges.
There’s challenges that show up and anyone that is experienced with software development would understand there’s challenges that show up at every stage of a product’s lifecycle.
There is the planning stages, as the development phases, there’s the bug test and the testing process of going from development to something that’s production-ready and has ir’s own challenges. Then there is the post production process, after you’ve released the product that you discover challenges that didn’t show up by virtue of the way it’s been deployed or the way it’s running or the way it was tested before the scale of the network, of the amount of requests that are being received, or some latency challenges as we saw essentially timing differences, that we saw recently is one of the things that was in the recent article that we put out.
So there are different challenges of different stages and of the journey we want to make sure that we’ve got a smooth experience before we invite large numbers of people to use the product but as a community you’re welcome to start using the product as it stands today.
13- How long will the marketing process by Marlin PR last? 1–2 months? 3–4 months? Or 6+ months? And what is their marketing strategy? Will it be SMM focused? Or will there also be a focus on more old-school, traditional marketing methods? Such as direct contact to major companies? Billboards/posters around strategic places in high potential cities? Presentations at major tech conferences? What will the marketing strategy be focused on?
Marlin is working on helping us with our social media strategy, a lot of our focus is social media because we are targeting individuals for the use our platform.
Targeting individuals is a major component of what we are talking about, Marlin will also be assisting us with b2b marketing for companies and specifically they will be assisting us with thought leadership in writing articles etc. These articles will speak to decision-makers and executives in a specific domain. You may not consider that to be mass-market but it’s like I said it’s focused and targeted on efficient customer acquisition and speaking to the right types of people. You are beginning to see some of that right now, there was an article that was released on Hackernoon, which is the beginning of that happening.
I don’t have a reason for us to be working with Marlin for the foreseeable future, as long as results continue to be delivered we will be working with Marlin.
That is my perspective, I think we need a PR agency long term, it’s on a short term endeavor they’re very clear that our intentions are to have them be a long term partner of ours and then that’s exactly what it is.
14- How is the progress of hiring someone who would be responsible for writing up everything in written format, including instruction manual for nocode platform & Decentralized Cloud, ALL AMA’s Q&A-written format (for people interested in looking up key words and find info easily), bi-weekly progress reports, bi-weekly tech updates, detailed/brief roadmap & description of each step, and basically a scribe for the company going on?
We have writers on board and essentially those writers now will be assisting us with writing up the things that are important for example, responding to these particular questions.
We are focusing our writing efforts when it’s important, when there’s some advisory or something that we need the community to know in aggregate, we will certainly be publishing that in written form.
15- Is sparkster still alpha mainnet? What is the plan for fully function mainnet?
Sparkster’s decentralised cloud is still in alpha, we will be in alpha for the next several months until we reach stability and we are essentially work on extending the capabilities and that multiple cells etc and then we will transition over to beta.
The current status is yes we’re still in alpha, I would say that we’re fully functional today, not partially functionally, but fully functional today. As we see successive releases we will see improvements in stability and information etc. But as far as I’m concerned, we are fully functional today.
16. Any updates on hiring a designer to completely redesign the website & explorer design? Before marketing begins?
Yes we have a designer working on the redesign of the website, we’re essentially waiting for them to come back with recommendations on particular designs.
17. How do you plan to get clients for the decentralized cloud on a worldwide level? Do you plan to partner with large players? Do you plan to hire professional sales people and when?
The answer to this is both, so we plan to hire professional sales people. I am interviewing the team that will be working in Cambridge. Almost everyone that I’m interviewing has a degree from either Oxford or Cambridge. I was just in interview with someone right now for approximately four hours who graduated from Oxford. He’s been a software developer for 30 years also, so you know that that’s my current focus is to essentially build this Sparkster Labs team but I will be recruiting for sales people etc when I get back to London, I’m still in LA at the moment and I hope to travel to Orlando in a week or two and then I’ll be returning to London. We will be hiring salespeople but we also will be working with large companies that are participating in emerging industries. There are large companies that are large automotive companies that are working in the in the in in the autonomous vehicle space so naturally partnering with those sorts of companies is absolutely something we’re pursuing actively.
18. Why isn’t Githib active?
Github is updated when what we’re releasing we feel is sufficiently stable.
19. Why did we delete blockchain code?
We updated the project and we organized the project so it’s easier to run the nodes and essentially build them out, we didn’t delete code we add it to the what’s there.
20. Our efforts should be to deliver to investors not only looking for customers at the end we invested believing in we in me.
All the promises we have always made is that we’re building a product that people will use. We haven’t promised anything other than we’re building a product that people will use and that we will do everything we possibly can to ensure that people use the products we built and that’s essentially what we’re delivering on. I am not really sure what you’re looking for but if you’re if you can elaborate on this question.
21. When we will bounty end.
Once we get to a place where the tokens are unlocked, the bounty program will close immediately prior to the tokens being unlocked.
22. Some time ago we mentioned startup accelerators? Do you plan to follow up at that plan will be great to see new businesses start up on Sparkster’s platform.
Absolutely we do, we are in touch with several startup accelerators in the Florida area.
This is one of the areas of focus for startup accelerators.
23. Isn’t keeping tokens locked to impact the price making it as security token?
We are not keeping tokens locked to impact the price, we are not trying to impact the price. We are looking for stability in market conditions that’s not the same thing so no I wouldn’t agree with you.
24. Juan Albelo, who is the Senior Vice President of SAP Corporation. Can he assist in partnering with SAP and collaborating on SAP correlation with Sparkster Lab? It would be great to fill Sparkster’s Lab with representatives of leading global corporations. We can be first until these corporations have joined the research labs of our competitors.
Absolutely so you know, Juan is someone I’ve known for many years so absolutely, he’s someone that we brought on board to do exactly that: to assist us with partnerships not just inside of SAP but across many large organizations and once we’re ready to utilize Juan’s capabilities.
From my discussions with Juan he would be very willing and happy to facilitate that sort of relationship with SAP and I do think that there’s somewhat some inevitability there to that by virtue of the problem with we’re working on has a meaningful and substantial impact and benefits of what to SAP sort of direction and objectives. I think that’s just a matter of time and it’s again he is apart of our team.
Are we going to provide more example functions?
You can write any JavaScript function and execute any JavaScript function today on our network. We will be providing instructions on for example creating documents etc. But essentially you can run any JavaScript function on the network today not just the one we demonstrated in our demo.
Thank you everyone for your time and I look forward to seeing you next week. We are thinking about changing the frequency of these ama’s to once every two weeks, so more people watch them I’d love your feedback on that let me know what you think and whether you think that’s a good idea.
Watch the full AMA here:
