Traditional peer review and post-publication image screening are valuable, but they’re mostly reactive. They hunt for visual anomalies after the damage may already be done. Against sophisticated alterations, AI-assisted fabrication, and the sheer volume of submissions, they often fall short. What we need is something proactive: a way to establish verifiable provenance at the moment an image is created.

The Quiet Power of a Sensor Fingerprint

That tool already exists. It’s called Veritas — and it is based on Photo-Response Non-Uniformity, or PRNU.

Every digital imaging sensor—whether in a microscope camera, a scanner, or a lab camera—carries a unique noise pattern caused by microscopic manufacturing imperfections. This pattern is stable, device-specific, and present in every image the sensor produces. It’s essentially a physical fingerprint of the hardware itself. Forensic researchers have used it for nearly two decades to link images to specific cameras and detect certain forms of tampering. Because the fingerprint is physically embedded in the sensor response, it’s far harder to remove or forge than metadata, watermarks, or the visual content alone.

Until now, this capability has mostly stayed in law enforcement and specialist labs. I believe the next step is to bring it into the everyday workflow of scientific research through what I call institutional device enrollment, or Lab Integrity Certification.

How Institutional Device Enrollment Would Work

Here’s how it would work in practice:

1. A university or research institute registers its imaging devices by capturing controlled reference images from each microscope camera, scanner, or digital camera used for research.
2. From those references, a secure PRNU fingerprint is computed and stored. No experimental data or personal information is needed — only the sensor signature.
3. Researchers then acquire their scientific images exclusively with enrolled devices.
4. When a manuscript is prepared for submission, the images are checked against the institutional fingerprint database. A similarity index and confidence score are generated.
5. The institution can issue a formal authenticity statement or attach the confidence score to the submission package.

The result is a clear chain of custody: physical sensor → captured image → institutional verification → published figure.

This is not just another detection algorithm. It is a structural change in how we treat scientific images — as primary data whose origin can be objectively attested by the institution that owns the instruments.

Realigning Incentives Around Integrity

I find this approach especially compelling because it helps realign incentives. Researchers face intense pressure to publish early and often. Institutions want high publication and citation numbers. Under the surface, that shared pressure can create an environment where cutting corners becomes tempting as long as no one gets caught. Institutional device enrollment with PRNU tips the balance back toward integrity by making validation of images from specific university hardware a standard part of institutional processes.

Why This Can Become the Gold Standard

Several features make this uniquely suited to become a widely accepted standard:

• It is proactive rather than reactive. Integrity is built into the data-generation process.
• It creates institutional accountability. Universities act as the trusted third party, providing journals and funders with an independent, auditable signal rather than relying solely on author declarations.
• It is quantitative and nuanced. Systems deliver a confidence score rather than a binary pass/fail, supporting both routine screening and deeper review.
• It is practical. Modern implementations can connect to laboratory information systems, electronic lab notebooks, and journal platforms, with plugins that make the process nearly seamless for researchers.
• It is privacy-preserving by design. Only the device fingerprint is stored; sensitive experimental content never needs to leave the lab for the core verification step.
• It has real deterrent power. When every image can be traced to a registered instrument, the economics of paper mills that rely on stock or recycled images change dramatically.
• It complements existing methods. PRNU verification works alongside visual inspection, AI detectors, and traditional forensics—it does not replace human judgment; it supplies an independent physical-layer signal.

A Practical Path Forward

Adoption does not require overnight revolution. Research-intensive universities can start with pilot programs in high-risk imaging fields — cell biology, microscopy-heavy neuroscience, materials science, or any discipline where figures carry heavy evidential weight. Successful pilots can inform institutional research-integrity policies. Publishers and funders can then encourage, and eventually expect, authenticity statements tied to institutional device enrollment.

Over time, the presence of an institutional PRNU certificate could become a positive differentiator—much as open-data mandates or pre-registration have shifted norms elsewhere in science.

Restoring Trust at the Source

The credibility of science depends on the integrity of its data. In many fields, images are not decorative; they are the primary evidence. Treating laboratory imaging devices as calibrated instruments that must be enrolled, and treating the resulting sensor fingerprints as a foundation for authenticity statements, offers a concrete way to restore that integrity.

Technology alone cannot solve the cultural and systemic drivers of research misconduct. But technology that makes provenance transparent, measurable, and institutionally owned can raise the cost of fabrication and lower the cost of trust.

I am convinced that institutional device enrollment with Veritas is one of the clearest, most practical paths available to turn scientific imaging from a vulnerability into a verifiable strength. The more universities, researchers, journals, and funders embrace it, the stronger the foundation of trust in the scientific literature will become. This is a solution worth adopting widely — and sooner rather than later.

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A (modest) start would be made if intellectual visionaries appeared on the world stage who, in the spirit of polymaths, would clearly describe the state of the world and humanity and develop a vision for a better future for all.

This excerpt captures a profound unease I have felt for years. Kant’s famous essay Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? famously begins with the imperative Sapere aude! – “Dare to know!” Enlightenment, for him, was humanity’s emergence from self-imposed immaturity, the courage to use one’s own reason without guidance from priests, kings, or tradition. Mendelssohn, writing in the same Berlin journal, emphasized enlightenment as both intellectual and practical progress: the refinement of reason and the improvement of society. Together, they painted a picture of mankind evolving toward autonomy, rationality, and moral responsibility.

Yet looking at the 21st century, one cannot help but ask: where has that bold, optimistic spirit gone?

Philosophical, Religious, and Sociological Threads in Humanity’s Evolution

Philosophically, the Enlightenment marked the decisive shift from heteronomy to autonomy. Thinkers like Kant, Locke, and Hume insisted that reason, not revelation or inherited authority, must be the ultimate arbiter of truth. This philosophical maturation mirrored humanity’s broader evolution: from mythological worldviews to scientific inquiry, from tribal loyalties to universal ethics.

Religiously, the Enlightenment was revolutionary yet nuanced. It did not seek to abolish faith but to liberate it from dogma. Voltaire’s battle cry, “Écrasez l’infâme!” targeted fanaticism and institutional coercion, while Lessing (a close contemporary of Mendelssohn) championed religious tolerance in Nathan the Wise.

The result was a secular public sphere where diverse beliefs could coexist under the rule of law rather than the sword. This religious maturation allowed societies to move beyond theocratic control and toward pluralism – a sociological prerequisite for modern democracies.

Sociologically, the Enlightenment thinkers diagnosed the structures that kept humanity immature: feudal hierarchies, censorship, and uneducated masses. Rousseau’s Social Contract and Montesquieu’s Separation of Powers laid the intellectual groundwork for revolutions in America and France. Education became a public good, not a privilege.

The public use of reason, as Kant distinguished it from private obedience, created the “bourgeois public sphere” (as Jürgen Habermas later called it), where citizens could debate as equals. Mankind’s sociological evolution – from subjects to citizens, from scarcity-driven survival to rights-based dignity – is unthinkable without this period.

Enlightenment Ideas Meet Today’s Crises

Fast-forward to 2026. The maelstrom of distribution struggles and archaic power politics dominates global discourse. Climate catastrophe, artificial intelligence ethics, mass migration, algorithmic manipulation of truth, resurgent authoritarianism, and proxy wars all scream for rational, long-term solutions. Instead, we see leaders trapped in zero-sum games: fighting over resources, borders, and electoral cycles while peddling nostalgia for national greatness or ideological purity.

Apply Kant’s categorical imperative today: act only according to maxims you could will to become universal law. How many current policies – from short-term fossil-fuel subsidies to surveillance capitalism — would survive that test? Mendelssohn’s call for practical enlightenment would demand that religious communities, instead of retreating into identity politics, engage in interfaith reason-giving that strengthens social cohesion rather than fracturing it.

Sociologically, we have regressed into what Kant would call “self-incurred immaturity” 2.0: not because we lack information, but because we drown in it. Social media echo chambers, populist demagogues, and conspiracy theories replicate the old guardians Kant warned against — only now they wear digital robes.

The evolution of mankind has brought unprecedented technological power; yet without Enlightenment discipline, that power risks turning us back into dependents on algorithms and strongmen.

How Enlightenment Principles Could Solve Today’s Problems

Imagine political leaders who actually reflected on these ideas instead of remaining trapped in the struggle over distribution and archaic notions of power.

1. Reason over Rhetoric: Evidence-based policy-making would replace performative outrage. Climate targets would be set through global, transparent deliberation (Kant’s “cosmopolitan right”), rather than through national bargaining. AI regulation would prioritize human dignity and autonomy rather than corporate or state control.
2. Tolerance and Pluralism: Religious and cultural differences would be navigated through rational public discourse rather than through cancellation or identity essentialism. Mendelssohn’s vision of enlightenment as moral and intellectual improvement could inspire the renewal of interfaith and intercultural academies that train future leaders in empathetic reason.
3. Education as Emancipation: Universal, high-quality civic education focused on critical thinking, scientific literacy, and ethical philosophy would counter misinformation. Kant insisted enlightenment is a collective, gradual process; we have the tools (open-access knowledge) but lack the political will to make it truly universal.
4. Perpetual Peace Revisited: Kant’s 1795 essay Zum ewigen Frieden proposed a federation of free republics, hospitality to strangers, and transparent covenants. Today’s leaders could replace balance-of-power realism with binding international institutions that treat humanity as a single moral community — exactly what is needed for pandemic preparedness, nuclear disarmament, and equitable global development.
5. Polymath Visionaries on the World Stage: The modest start Kant and Mendelssohn implicitly called for is still possible. We need public intellectuals who combine scientific rigor, philosophical depth, and sociological insight – modern polymaths who refuse to be siloed. Their task: describe reality without ideological distortion and articulate a positive, inclusive vision of human flourishing.

If today’s leaders stepped out of the maelstrom of short-term power and distributional conflict, they would discover that Enlightenment ideas are not relics – they are the most powerful tools we possess for navigating complexity. Reason, autonomy, tolerance, and progress are not Western luxuries; they are humanity’s hard-won inheritance and its best hope.

The question “What is Enlightenment?” was never meant to be answered once and for all. It is a perpetual challenge. The real question for our generation is whether we still possess the courage to live up to it – or whether we will let the age of reason slip quietly into history.

In my book The Mindful Revolution, I explore this next evolutionary step for humanity precisely. By combining individual mindfulness with a deeper understanding of societal complexity, the book shows how each of us can cultivate the inner clarity and rational autonomy that Kant demanded, while contributing to a collective shift toward a more conscious, compassionate, and sustainable world. True enlightenment in the 21st century must begin within ourselves before it can reshape our politics and societies.

I remain hopeful that new visionaries will step forward.

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In this post, I’ll explore whether humans can tap into this internal communication system, drawing on groundbreaking work from Michael Levin and his lab at Tufts University, along with related scientific studies.

What Is Bioelectric Communication?

At its core, bioelectricity refers to the electrical potentials and ion flows across cell membranes that allow cells to “communicate” with each other. Unlike the nervous system’s rapid firing of neurons, these signals operate more like a slow, distributed network that guides large-scale processes in the body. Cells maintain voltage gradients — differences in electrical charge — that influence everything from gene expression to cell migration and proliferation.

Research shows that these bioelectric networks form a kind of “code” that cells use to store memories of body patterns and respond to injuries. For instance, in regeneration-capable organisms such as flatworms and frogs, bioelectric signals help cells “decide” what to rebuild after damage. Levin describes this as cells exhibiting “basal cognition” — basic problem-solving abilities that enable collective intelligence across tissues.

But can we, as conscious beings, interface with this system? While direct “conversation” like commanding your kidney to heal itself isn’t yet possible, experiments demonstrate that manipulating bioelectric signals can redirect organ behavior, hinting at future technologies for human applications.

Michael Levin’s Pioneering Experiments at Tufts

Michael Levin’s lab has been at the forefront of this field, focusing on how bioelectric signals control morphogenesis—the process of forming tissues and organs. Their work reveals that by altering these signals, we can essentially “instruct” cells to build or repair structures in ways that defy normal biology.

Inducing New Organs in Frogs

In a landmark 2011 study, Levin’s team manipulated bioelectric signals in frog (Xenopus) embryos to trigger the formation of entirely new organs. They used genetic tools to deliver mRNA encoding ion channels, altering membrane voltage in specific cells. When they depolarized (made less negative) cells in the head, it disrupted normal eye development, leading to deformed or missing eyes. More astonishingly, by hyperpolarizing cells in non-eye areas like the back or tail to match the “eye-specific” voltage gradient, they induced fully functional eyes to grow there.

This experiment showed that bioelectric gradients act as a blueprint for organ identity. Each structure has a unique voltage “signature,” and by mimicking it, cells anywhere in the body can be reprogrammed. Implications? This could lead to regenerative therapies where we “communicate” instructions to grow replacement organs on demand.

Rewiring Regeneration in Flatworms

Levin’s group has also worked with planarians — flatworms famous for their regenerative abilities. In a 2013 study, they altered bioelectric patterns using drugs that target ion channels, creating two-headed worms. Remarkably, these changes persisted across generations without altering the DNA; the bioelectric “memory” instructed subsequent regenerations to produce the same multi-headed form. They even grafted heads from different species, demonstrating how bioelectric signals override genetic defaults to control anatomy.

This highlights bioelectricity’s role in long-term pattern storage, akin to how software updates hardware behavior. In terms of communication, it suggests we could “edit” the body’s internal dialogue to promote healing or prevent malformations.

Regrowing Limbs and Tails

Extending to frogs, Levin’s lab used bioelectric modulation to regrow tadpole tails (including spinal cord and muscle) and even adult hind legs — a feat previously thought impossible in non-regenerative stages. By delivering targeted electrical signals via ion channel drugs, they guided cells away from scarring toward rebuilding complex structures.

In amphibians like axolotls, “currents of injury” — natural electric fields at wound sites — drive regeneration. Disrupting these with channel blockers halts the process, while applying exogenous fields induces it in non-regenerative species. These studies underscore bioelectric signals as a universal language for tissue repair.

Broader Scientific Studies on Bioelectric Mechanisms

Beyond Levin’s lab, numerous papers support the idea that bioelectricity enables “communication” between cells and organs.

Guiding Cell Behavior in Regeneration

A 2009 review details how electric fields direct cell migration (galvanotaxis) during wound healing and regeneration. For example, in corneal injuries, natural fields guide keratinocytes to close wounds, while voltage-gated channels control proliferation and differentiation. In zebrafish eyes, proton pumps regulate retinoblast growth, and hyperpolarization via potassium channels influences stem cell fate in human mesenchymal cells.

These mechanisms show bioelectricity as an epigenetic cue, integrating with genetic pathways to orchestrate pattern formation. Polarity in planarians, for instance, is set by ion flows, allowing fragments to regenerate heads or tails correctly.

Bioelectricity in Brain Development and Cancer

Bioelectric signals also shape organs like the brain. In frog embryos, voltage gradients regulate neural development, and manipulations can alter brain structures. Levin’s work extends this to cancer: by forcing bioelectric states in frogs, they suppressed tumors despite oncogenes, viewing cancer as a breakdown in cellular communication where cells revert to selfish, unicellular behavior.

A recent 2025 paper frames bioelectric networks as a “tractable interface” for biomedicine, allowing us to “communicate” goals to cellular collectives. Techniques such as optogenetics and pharmacology can induce ectopic organs, repair birth defects (e.g., activating HCN2 channels to correct brain morphology), and normalize cancer by restoring connectivity.

Mindful Dialogue with the Body: Supporting Experiments

Complementing the bioelectric perspective, the concept of mindfully “talking” to your body — through listening to its signals and responding with kindness — finds support in experiments on mind-body interventions. For example, in a 1998 randomized controlled trial with psoriasis patients, those practicing mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) during ultraviolet light therapy cleared skin lesions significantly faster than those receiving therapy alone, demonstrating how mindful attention accelerates physical healing. 

Another study explored the impact of perceived time on wound healing: participants with induced bruises healed faster when they believed more time had passed (via manipulated timers), underscoring how mental perceptions directly influence physiological recovery and align with the blog’s emphasis on intuitive, non-verbal communication with the body. Additionally, RCTs in HIV patients showed that 8‑week MBSR programs increased CD4+ T lymphocyte counts, boosting immune function, while in stressed adults, brief mindfulness retreats reduced inflammatory markers like IL‑6 by enhancing brain connectivity to buffer stress.  

These experiments illustrate how re-establishing a “two-way conversation” via mindfulness — focusing on present-moment body signals and responding with gratitude and care — can restore feedback loops, reduce chronic stress disconnection, and promote self-healing.

Can You Communicate with Your Organs Today?

While Levin’s experiments are mostly in model organisms, the principles apply to humans. Biofeedback techniques—where you monitor and influence physiological signals, such as heart rate variability—offer a rudimentary way to “talk” to your body. However, true communication via bioelectricity might involve emerging “electroceuticals” — devices or drugs that modulate ion channels to treat conditions like chronic pain or inflammation.

For now, it’s not about willing your spleen to behave but about scientific tools that hack the body’s electrical language. Levin envisions an “anatomical compiler” in which we input desired outcomes, and bioelectric interventions make them happen. Challenges remain, such as scaling to complex human organs and ensuring safety, but studies in mice on limb regeneration are underway.

The Future: A New Era of Regenerative Medicine

The question “Can I communicate with my body organs?” is evolving from speculation to science. Through bioelectricity, we’re learning to eavesdrop on — and intervene in — the body’s internal chatter. Levin’s lab has shown we can rewrite cellular instructions for regeneration, organ formation, and disease control, paving the way for therapies that harness the body’s own intelligence.

As research progresses, perhaps one day you’ll “tell” your body to heal a damaged heart or grow new tissue. Until then, this field reminds us that our bodies are not just machines but dynamic, communicative systems waiting to be understood.

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Years ago, I wrote about my personal approach to life and work: connecting the dots. Instead of rigid New Year’s resolutions or elaborate strategies, I chose to stay open, mindful, and engaged with my surroundings. When I’m fully present—focusing on each moment and contributing whatever I can—unexpected connections emerge. Dots appear that I can link together, leading to insights in my personal life and even in business decisions. But when I’m passive or disconnected, nothing happens. Those dots simply don’t show up.

At the time, this felt almost intuitive, even magical.

Discovering the Science of Serendipity

Little did I know there was rigorous science backing it up.

Recently, I came across a fascinating academic paper by Dr. Christian Busch, published in the Journal of Management Studies: “Towards a Theory of Serendipity: A Systematic Review and Conceptualization”.

Busch, known for his work on purpose-driven innovation and author of the bestselling book The Serendipity Mindset, synthesizes decades of research to define and explain serendipity—those surprising and valuable discoveries that seem to happen by chance.

What Makes Serendipity Happen?

Busch clarifies that true serendipity isn’t mere blind luck. It requires three necessary conditions:

1. Surprise (an unexpected trigger or unplanned moment).
2. Agency (we actively notice it, make decisions, and connect it to something meaningful).
3. Value (it leads to a positive, valuable outcome).

He defines serendipity as: “surprising discovery that results from unplanned moments in which our decisions and actions lead to valuable outcomes.”

This aligns perfectly with “connecting the dots”: the dots are the unexpected triggers, and our mindfulness and explorative mindset provide the agency to link them into something valuable.

Cultivating Serendipity at Multiple Levels

Busch’s theory goes further, framing the cultivation of serendipity as a multi-level process—individual, organizational, and even societal. At the personal level, it involves developing alertness, openness, and a willingness to reframe surprises as opportunities. Organizations can foster it through flexible structures, diverse networks, and cultures that encourage experimentation rather than strict control.

An Active Mindset for an Unpredictable World

This research validates what I’ve experienced: serendipity isn’t passive waiting for luck. It’s an active mindset. By staying connected to our environment, being mindful, and contributing positively, we create the conditions for those valuable connections to appear.

In a world that often prioritizes efficiency, planning, and predictability, embracing serendipity reminds us that some of the greatest breakthroughs—in life, innovation, and relationships—come from the unexpected. As Busch’s work shows, we can train this “serendipity muscle” just like any other skill.

If you’re interested in diving deeper, I highly recommend Busch’s paper (and his book). It might just help you spot—and connect—your next dot.

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Cooperation is a practice. Individual actors and perspectives come together to create a new vision. Each actor adds their own original point of view. Each can solo or layout, as best serves the work. Each time we cooperate, we are exposed to different ways of working and problem-solving.

Cooperation is not to be mistaken for competition. It is not a power struggle to get your way or to be proven right. Competition serves the ego — cooperation supports the highest outcome.

Think of cooperation as giving or getting a boost to see over a high wall. there is no power struggle in this act — you’re simply finding the best route to a new perspective. It’s a disservice to the project to weigh our own contribution to it. Believing an idea is best because it is ours is an error of inexperience. The ego demands personal authorship inflating itself at the expense of the project. It can reject new ideas that seem counter-intuitive and protect familiar ones.

The best results are found when we are impartial and detached from our own strategies. We all benefit when the best idea is chosen., regardless of whether it’s ours or not.

Word.

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Since business model innovation comes down to making changes to how a business earns its revenue, incurs its costs, and manages its risks, it should be seen as a continuous process rather than an organizational project task. Additionally, the procedural aspect comes another pre-condition for sustainable business model innovation: decentralization. Decentralization entails the non-existence of a central authority that aggregates power and defines all decision-making and the necessity to collaborate. Working in a decentralized network, all participants must co-ordinate their individual responsibilities and work packages. They have to agree upon a governance framework that defines the network’s rules and processes.

At first sight, decentralization is nothing you would expect to take place in a typical enterprise. Typically, companies or other organizations are hierarchically structured, with strategy and major decisions defined by an executive level, and lesser important aspects organized downwards in the org chart. Some organizational structures, e.g., the matrix organization, have implemented elements of decentralization. However, you won’t find a traditional organization besides cooperatives that would do without a top-down command chain. 

Since I have never been a huge fan of classic centralized structures, Blockchain technology has been warmly welcomed. For the first time, a foundational technology allows for decentralized structures and processes in the real world — by leveraging its inherent components of trustlessness, immutability, and security. For me, Blockchain is the paradigm shift needed to build and develop future businesses aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. In decentralized systems, enterprises become part of an overall protocol to add their organization-specific elements, s.a., brand, expertise, products, and services. Mechanisms ensure that each participant receives a fair return on investment into the network, depending on their contributions.

The Next Level Of Business Model Innovation — The Decentralized Network

On the basic level of a decentralized system, all participants collaboratively build, develop, and maintain foundational aspects of technology, legal, regulatory and organizational affairs. On the second level, participants cooperate in running transactions in the decentralized network. On the third layer, participants can compete with one another, building their individual applications on top of the jointly created platform. This 3‑layered Network Model is sustainable and resilient against economic downturns. However, it is far from being easily created. The challenges of setting up such a model mostly lie in overcoming the traditional beliefs of many top-level and most middle-level managers in enterprises, who try to preserve legacy organizational structures and processes. For them, terms, s.a. open-source, decentralization, or collaboration sound harmful to the economy. At least they are signs of weakness: who would collaborate or share IP if profits should be maximized when used proprietarily?

The simple truth is that the size of the economic cake isn’t fixed. And, the more enterprises collaborate, the lower their fixed costs. In other words,  collaboration pays-off. It does not only pay-off but is an indispensable presupposition for environmental-friendly, sustainable businesses. While many large enterprises have learned that cooperating on individual levels makes sense, only a few of them are ready to move to the next level and integrate not another model in their organization, but — vice versa — integrate their organization in a new (business) model. A generally more negative economic outlook, combined with the actual COVID-19 pandemic, will motivate more enterprises to think about entering the new level of business model innovation and joining decentralized networks in their respective industries.  

A Foundational Layer for Micromobility

I’m quite positive about the GAIA‑X Federated Data Infrastructure for Europe initiative that we, with Datarella, have joined recently. Its general approach is a truly decentralized one: (competing) enterprises and organizations from different domains come together. They are asked to join forces to create a n open, non-discriminating data infrastructure. In the mobility space, this will be used for all kinds of efficiency improvements, such as a better utilization of parking space, and for new offerings, such as shared micromobility services that allow for a seamless travel experience even in densely populated areas, both with significant positive environmental impacts. In 2021, we will see whether the GAIA‑X participants will make the open, decentralized intent come true!

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In partnership with Fetch.ai, a Cambridge-based artificial intelligence lab, we today announced the launch of M‑ZONE, a smart city zoning infrastructure trial in Munich. Using AI-powered software agents to optimize resource usage and reduce the city’s carbon footprint, we predict the mass implementation of smart city infrastructure will result in 34,000t annual CO2 emission reduction.

Landlords and the City Council are interested in optimizing the parking space management to allow for available parking for all corporate tenants employees while organizing the traffic flow and preventing commuter traffic jams. Our system incentivizes community use of public transport through a tokenized incentive system while reducing the congestion that accounts for a great deal of Munich’s CO2 emissions.

Multiple Benefits for Stakeholders

• Individual commuters and drivers save time, money, and reduce driver stress.
• Property owners will get simplified approvals for new development projects.
• Tenants can lower their rents through dynamic parking spot sharing.
• The city council can optimize traffic flows.
• The environment benefits from saved CO2 emissions

M‑ZONE users are incentivized to reduce their number of car trips to the “Blockchain Building Connex” and adjacent corporate buildings through a reward system, measured by the utilization of parking spaces. Each registered user who is a regular car park user will be rewarded with a certain amount of tokens per minute for not parking at the parking lot. As soon as a car (or its related wallet address) is registered as ‘parked’ by the parking agent, the token flow to this wallet stops.

A Massive Reduction Of CO2 Emissions

Assuming a 10% reduction in car usage across Munich alone, the city would see a 34.000 tonnes annual CO2 emission reduction. Scaled up to cover all of Germany, which equates to 1.7 million tonnes CO2 reduction annually. This smart city solution can penetrate huge markets simply by tapping into wasted data and utilizing it efficiently.

Users are incentivized to reduce their number of car trips to the Connex and adjacent corporate offices through a reward system, measured by the utilization of parking spaces. Each registered user who is a regular car park user will be rewarded with a certain amount of tokens per minute for not parking at the parking lot. As soon as a car or its related wallet address is registered as parked by the Carpark AEA, the token airdrops to this wallet stop/slow. The number of tokens rewarded per wallet and minute depends on the current utilization of the parking lot.

Open, Decentralized, Self-Sovereign

In contrast to other smart parking projects, M‑ZONE is an open-sourced, decentralized smart city infrastructure project that values the individual by implementing a self-sovereign identity (SSI) framework. Besides the general openness of the used code that enables other developers to use it and build their applications on top of it, M‑ZONE uses our partner Fetch.ai’s public blockchain technology. In combination with Fetch.ai’s Autonomous Economic Agents (AEA), M‑ZONE is made to be implemented worldwide. The underlying Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) framework, which will be implemented in the next phase, allows for a completely non-proprietary, privacy-focused system that provides the individual with full control over her identity.

A Promising Collaborative Approach

The latter aspect contradicts enterprises’ traditional assumption that user data could be used freely and exploited. We at Datarella and Fetch.ai think that the individual should be in full control of who uses her data and for what purposes. We know that many incumbents are still attached to the legacy, platform, or ‘dirigiste’ thinking. However, there are also large enterprises that share our beliefs and are moving towards self-sovereignty. We think that M‑ZONE can serve as a good example for strengthening the individual perspective, and we have reasons to believe that we will be joined by like-minded partners soon.

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A DAO is a Decentralised Autonomous Organisation — a network comprised of several, if not many, individual entities — or: nodes — that have agreed on working together on some specific purpose. The basis for their work is a set of rules, a so-called governance model. This governance model not only defines the rules and processes of the DAO but also comes with an implemented incentivization scheme that incentivizes each node to actively participate in the network.

DAO — Brainstorming On Decentralised Autonomous Organisations

As of 2020, there are several blockchain protocols providing software and governance to create DAOs. My goal for today is to get your feedback on the below mentioned specific DAO ideas — or: applications if you will.

DARFT

Decentralised Autonomous Request for Tender

• There is a Request for Tender RFT process
• A smart contract defines the complete RFT process 
• All participants are provided with user interfaces for input and output of their respective data
• Approval criteria for each step of the process are programmed in the smart contract that automatically decides about reaching the next step for each participant
• Financial transactions due to individual steps of the process are automatically triggered and payments are sent to the participants
• After the final round, the winner is selected based on the approval rates received in each round
• The winner receives the payment and a briefing for the first milestone

DACOMMS

Decentralised Autonomous Communications

• There are content owners with the need to communicate their contents
• Content owners use the DACOMMS to decentralize their communications
• Content owners publish a job; i.e. content they want to be communicated, incl. a budget (metrics-based, e.g.number of redirected visitors, leads, etc.)
• Potential communicators apply for this job by providing their credentials; i.e. brand, website, Online/Social Media reach (based on public metrics provided by respective services)
• Communicators are selected based on the criteria programmed in the smart contract initially provided by the content owner
• The job is opened to every communicator meeting the requirements described in the smart contract
• Communicators start with their work and report the results back to the smart contract
• The job ends as soon as the budget is consumed
• Communicators automatically receive payments according to their performances

These are two very basic ideas around DAOs. I have not thought them through in detail, yet. Please tell me what you think about these DAO ideas. Do you feel that I better should forget about them, or do you think both ideas or one of them should be worked on? Then let’s collaborate! 

Thank you for your feedback!

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Most people aren’t self-employed, and most people have never asked themselves whether to start something on their own. Why should they? There is no rule that says “self-employment is the holy grail”.  Of course, we know that self-employment can have positive effects on our health, e.g. the likelihood of hospital admissions of self-employed individuals is about half that of wage workers. This finding holds true even when accounting for a potential self-selection of the healthy into self-employment. However, we don’t know whether self-employed — who often simply cannot afford to become ill — are less sensitive towards their (potential) illnesses.

Of my friends and business network, I couldn’t tell whether, in principle, it’s healthier to be paid on a monthly basis or generating sufficient revenues for a withdrawal from the business account. I, myself, have never been employed by somebody else, except as a working student, so I can’t compare. What I do know however, is, that there are some of my friends who aren’t really satisfied with their jobs and like to discuss the start-up and venture capital topic at dinner parties.  They then declare to be ready to quit their jobs as soon as the right time has come. Ok, only when is the right time? Answers like “as soon as I have the right idea”, “after I have reached the next step on my career ladder” — or even better — “when the right point of time has come” are given. Sorry guys, not one of you will start her own company. This is nothing else as prevaricating. 

As so often in life, you typically know when the right time for something has come, be it to move to another city, to leave your partner, to have kids, or to quit your job and start your own company. These significant moves in life usually are triggered by a real need — in my case, it was my father’s role model, who, earning a decent income as a self-employed steel trader, returned home at 5 pm, went on holidays when it made sense or played tennis with us kids when the weather — and not a boss — allowed it. I felt the need to live autonomously and to decide about essential aspects of my life — and my first company, an online travel agency, followed suit.

Of course, you should have some idea you plan to build your company on. And, of course there should be some visibility regarding market potential, product acceptance, and future revenues, before you start-up. It may be wise to gain some experience working for a large enterprise or a consultancy in order to build your network and not being forced to start from 0. However, if you feel being ready for a change, go for it — start your own business — the best time for that is right now! 

There is one alternative I’d like to point out: if you join a company that allows you to act as if you were self-employed, that encourages you to create and pursue your vision of the business, go for that option! With Datarella, we have tried to create such a company — I’d describe our business as a creative venture at the high-end side of technology combined with sufficient business clout guaranteeing that the show goes on. Obviously, joining a company like Datarella could be a valid alternative to start-up!

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In the field of technology, there is a long history of connecting sectors and players through the setting of technological hardware and software standards, and through the development of application interfaces (APIs) that provide a set of functions and procedures to allow access to the computer program features or data. Due to the complexity and the high degree of specialization of many software programs, APIs allow for modularization of value chains: several different actors can add their pieces of code to a final whole representing a fully-functional program. In that way, complex applications are provided by a collaboration of several domain specialists, each contributing the best solution in the respective industry. An API model like this we need for other areas of life, as well as for life, itself. Life is too complex for being understood and manageable individually in separate, siloed areas, life must be seen and managed as a whole, and by collaborative efforts.

Connected Through API

First, the different areas of life have to be connected through APIs. Then, they have to be synchronized in order to create a functioning system. Global challenges, such as climate crisis, seem to be unsolvable when looked at from individual domains: experts of the field of ecology blame corporations for their environmental impact. Company bosses blame prohibitive environmental regulations for a worsening business climate. Employees blame their employers for laying them off because of weak performance. The retail industry blames consumers for a low propensity to consume. A vicious economic cycle has been created, with fingerpointing as the means of choice for most actors, as if it were possible to find a single culprit, being responsible for the mess.

Using all kinds of technologies, humans have created a system too complex to be manageable by a central entity. No single government, organization, or even a group of people can oversee and control the complete system. And no single individual aspect of human behavior is solely responsible for undesired outcomes, such as wars, climate crisis, or poverty. However, many people like to ask for simple solutions for complex problems. And, as soon as someone starts offering this kind of solution, people are relieved, support, and reinforce this simplified solution. Typically, politicians of the far ends of the political spectrum feel encouraged to serve these needs for easy solutions and strong men who take responsibility and act in a straightforward way. Simple contexts, simple messages, simple recipes, good outcomes — that could be the political program of shrewd radical politicians who have a good feeling of worried about citizens‘ needs.

Solving Global Challenges — Start With Accepting Complexity

Of course, it is not. As described above, we live in a highly complex, decentralized, and distributed world. Who has worked in a decentralized team, or has experience with distributed systems, knows how differently these are to be managed. While most individual organizations feature centralized structures and can be managed in a top-down manner — at least, theoretically — distributed systems need a different form of management and control. In distributed systems, individual participants act on their own behalf and maximize their individual profit. To create a well-functioning distributed system, all participants must be incentivized in a way that serves both, their own and the system‘s needs, at the same time. In other words, participants’ individual behaviors have to be aligned with the purpose and the goal of the system. If a soccer player personally benefits form scoring goals by rising in the list of top scorers, and he coincidentally ensures his team‘s victory, this alignment of interests provides a good basis for the system‘s stability. Creating governance models and incentive schemes for distributed systems are one of the hardest tasks in the field of technology, but emerges as becoming the toughest challenge for our planet.

But, before we can start discussing governance models we must define our system with all its relevant participants I’ll give it a try in the next post.

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