Inspiration
The movement towards electrification requires immense resources that many countries do not have access to. Our goal walking into LAHACKS was to combine our curiosity about Web3 technologies with the world's need for equity in electrification.
The Problem
One of the main bottlenecks in the process of electrification is access to the required metals for batteries. Recently, it was discovered that a large part of the international ocean floor is covered with small rocks called nodules. These nodules contain metals crucial to manufacturing batteries. Initially, the UN aimed to ensure that every country, rich or poor, would have equitable access to these nodules. For example, specific areas of the seabed were allocated for developing nations. In September of 2022, the New York Times exposed corporations for exploiting access to seabed nodule distribution data. These corporations used the data for their own benefit, encroaching into areas of the seabed allocated for developing countries. One such example is the Metals Company, an Australian firm caught bribing a UN subcommittee for classified files.
Our Solution
With ElectriQuity, we created a queue-based system secured by the Ethereum blockchain to make sure that countries in need of electrification have access to the needed resources. Smart contracts provide security, ensuring that resources are allocated fairly and accurately. We utilized the Ethereum blockchain network in order to create a secure queue to manage the distribution of nodules. This queue and its history will be available publicly to all governments. Therefore, the Seabed Authority (committee of UN) will not be able to accept bribes or engage in any activities that benefit corporations or larger countries because it will be clear that resources are not being allocated to the countries at the top of the queue. We hope that our solution sets a precedent for the application of Web3 technologies in similar queue-based problems; It is a proof of concept for a way to make global electrification an equitable process.
How we built it
Through the utilization of smart contracts, the Ethereum blockchain, and MetaMask to connect the client to the blockchain, ElectriQuity was created. We used Solidity to implement smart contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain, JavaScript in order to build our queue, and for the front end, we used HTML and CSS.
Challenges we ran into
We faced many challenges throughout the course of the project, including establishing a client-side Ethereum test network through Truffle and Ganache, issues with an outdated extension (Metamask) used to connect the client to the test network, and how to implement the queue data structure using the blockchain network.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Without the experience of a previous hackathon, we are proud that we were able to accomplish our goal: learning about the practical applications of Web3 technology. The various challenges that we faced throughout the development of ElectriQuity proved to be great opportunities. Through these challenges, we gained a better understanding of smart contracts and web development.
What we learned
We learned numerous things while working on this project, including what smart contracts are and how they can be implemented using Solidity. We also learned how to use tools such as Truffle in order to aid in developing blockchain apps. Finally, we learned a lot about JavaScript to create client-side applications and used both HTML and CSS to create the user interface.
What's next for ElectriQuity
At the moment, ElectriQuity is our team's minimum viable product as a proof of concept for Web3 technology. In the future, we seek to make ElectriQuity more user-friendly by enhancing the client side. We also want to spend more time learning about how to develop more complex smart contracts for different applications of Web3 technology.
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