Initiative
Ambrosus

Ambrosus in a Nutshell ... Ambrosus: Envisioning a smarter, healthier and transparent food and pharma ecosystem connecting producers, retailers, consumers and markets though distributed apps, sensors, automation and blockchain based data revolution.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Ambrosus in a Nutshell ... Ambrosus: Envisioning a smarter, healthier and transparent food and pharma ecosystem connecting producers, retailers, consumers and markets though distributed apps, sensors, automation and blockchain based data revolution.



Problems Beings Addressed

Food and Medicine are the most critical industries related to human health and prosperity. Despite huge advances in Digital Technology, much of these industries have failed to keep up with advances in modern technologies and still manage data in an archaic way. Some of the symptoms of the problem of existing approaches are-

1. Data Silos — Manufacturing companies today have data silos where data is stored in local databases and excel sheets. It is extremely expensive and cumbersome for cross organizational data use eg. in the case of process analysis, compliance with new regulations, etc.

2. Poor Cross Organizational Communication — In a supply chain, various industries find it hard to share and trace product related information leading to lack of real time traceability, low quality control, and even theft or loss of products.

3. Uninformed Consumers — Consumers of food products have no information about the origin of food produced, conditions of storage within the supply chain, nutritional information, and food quality. Nor have they any way to communicate complaints that can directly reach the places responsible for their production.

4. Counterfeiting of Drugs — Counterfeit drugs consumes hundreds of lives daily, with no effective method to verify the authenticity of the package. The Ambrosus Solution

Ambrosus is leading the development of Industry 4.0 by envisioning a massive disruption in the way product related data is collected, stored, and utilised. Instead of solving the problem in silos it is proposing an integrated solution that is applicable across the value chain from farm to fork. Not only will it significantly improve efficiency and transparency within existing supply chains, but will also lead to an integrated app development ecosystem that would open up a plethora of new services and business opportunities for startups.

The project consists of the following four components:



1. Ambrosus Data Ecosystem

Ambrosus is creating an open scalable data management protocol that can integrate with every data source across multiple organizations in the food ecosystem, including food producers, suppliers, supermarkets and consumers. This data architecture would comprise of a combination of distributed storages including cloud storage as well as the blockchain.

Key features will be:
... a. Standardised data architecture: This will allow for storage of diverse data types, from static product specifications data, to dynamic data such as real time product tracking, conditions of storage such as temperature and humidity, inventory data, and point of sale.
... b. Data Permissions: Although every company can integrate itself with the Ambrosus state of the art data management system, the companies can be assured that their data will be protected by a granular permission based system that would classify publically available data, data available for partner companies, and even data permissions for different levels of management within the company.
... c. Data Access API: A comprehensive API will be available for granular data access whenever there is any requirement of audits, data analysis, process optimisations, quality control, compliance with new regulations, certifications, shaving organizations millions of dollars in annual costs.

2. App Development Kit

The main value of the Ambrosus Data Ecosystem is that it will unlock a plethora of opportunities for the development of Mobile and Desktop Apps for a variety of use cases by connecting to the Data stored on the Ambrosus Ecosystem. Ambrosus is developing a user friendly App Development Environment that could open up businesses worth millions of dollars.

Types of Apps:
... a. Consumer Related Apps: We foresee an ecosystem of thousands of mobile apps created by third party developers that leverage on the data provided by the Ambrosus Ecosystem. Some likely use cases are
... ... i. Consumers giving product quality reviews, complaints and feedback on their app where the feedback directly goes to the manufacturer, and the responsible staff during the shift when that product was manufactured.
... ... i. ii. Local farmers and dairy manufacturers uploading pictures of produce and the environment where it is made, thus having a competitive advantage over industrial products.
... ... i. iii. Loyalty programmes based on consumption like campaigns done by food companies, or by supermarkets, managed using Ambrosus API.
... ... i. iv. Calorie and Nutrition counters linked to product specifications data stored on Ambrosus.
... ... i. v. Apps for tracing supply chain history of the product a consumer is buying.
... ... i. vi. Medicine authenticity checker by scanning encrypted code on a package.
... b. Enterprise Apps
Enterprise Apps are designed to be built for a variety of data management applications within the different supply chain ecosystems. Some potential examples include.
... ... i. A logistics company building a dapp using Ambrosus supply chain data to offer services to enterprise clients.
... ... ii. A pharma company using Ambrosus for serialisation and printing labels for integrated tracking .
... ... iii. Internal Inventory Management App
... ... iv. App for farmers to tag their produce prior to shipping
... ... v. App by insurance companies to calculate premiums based on data feeds from Ambrosus.

These Apps could be developed by companies internally or could be developed by third parties. Third parties would be able to request companies for protected data in case of app development (for eg. A request for CO2 consumption for creating a can of coke).



3. Sensor Technologies

The main pillar that the entire Ambrosus Ecosystem rests on is high quality reliable data and measurements. This is especially true for measuring parameters such as quality of food products, fish, dairy and meat. Pharmaceutical Industries require sensors to have special certifications that ensure reliability of measurements. To aid the development and installation of compatible sensors that can directly speak to Ambrosus Blockchain and Distributed data system, Ambrosus has set up a lab to integrate sensors from some of the most reputed sensor manufacturer around the world.

By having a repository of appropriate sensors, Ambrosus can help advise partner companies to install the latest state of the art sensors to improve the quality of the data fed into the system. Ambrosus has set up a state of the art research lab in Lausanne that is currently interacting with various Sensor Manufacturers and developing the hardware so that these sensors can directly talk to Ambrosus Distributed data management systems.

4. Smart Commodities Market

The final element of the food supply chain revolution that Ambrosus aims to bring is the establishment of a Decentralised Market that will enable different supply chain elements to dynamically establish trading contracts that is fair and transparent. The crossroads browser is a step in this direction and is close to release. It will help in trading of futures markets for food commodities.

Another pilot currently in development is the integration of Coffee farmers in Kenya and Tanzania with buyers in China. This will provide farmers with more choice to market as well as provide them with the competitive advantage to upload all documents and pictures of their coffee batch on the blockchain so that the consumers can have access to more information related to the coffee they are buying.



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