🧠🔑 LYNX: Building privacy-preserving data infrastructure for biometric & wearable data

OceanDAO Round 14
#1

*Part 1 - Proposal Submission (Mandatory)

Name of Project: LYNX

Proposal in one sentence:

All human biometric wearable data will be owned and controlled by individual users through privacy-preserving infrastructure, which will power safe and rewarding user experiences, including within and beyond the metaverse.

Description of the project and what problem is it solving:

LYNX is a backend data management system for real-time biometric user data collected through wearables and interfaces (including brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), fitness trackers and eye-tracking technologies). LYNX is able to amalgamate data from multiple wearables to create a true “digital twin”. Users retain ownership over their raw data, while compute-to-data technology on Ocean ensures safe interactions with third parties — including independent algorithm providers to revolutionise wearable UX, and Web3 marketplaces for tokenised rewards.

Grant Deliverables: (Provide us with a check-boxed list of deliverables for the funding provided.)

Our Hackathon will test the compute-to-data (C2D) functionality on Ocean and if it can be used accurately for human biometric data, specifically EEG (brain data). We are partnering with Algovera AI on this and would love for the Ocean community to be involved. This next month will largely be organising this.

  • [ ] Prepare for Hackathon (partnered with Algovera) in March 2022 (12th -26th). This includes:
    • [ ] Publish EEG data on Ocean (dry run)
    • [ ] Store EEG data (e.g. IPFS and Ocean)
    • [ ] Create marketing materials
    • [ ] Publicise Hackathon - Twitter; Ocean channels; Discords; Telegram groups; LinkedIn
    • [ ] Distribute Hack sign-up forms (Airtable)
    • [ ] Finalise speakers
    • [ ] Publish Hack criteria
    • [ ] Organise prizes
    • [ ] Organise POAPs for participants
  • [ ] Publish ‘lite’ paper V3 (pivoting towards health & wellbeing)
  • [ ] Publish an initial hardware feasibility study for a novel BCI hardware device
  • [ ] Launch LYNX landing page (to be located at lynx.phas3.io)
  • [ ] Commission branding for LYNX:
    • [ ] Animated logo
    • [ ] Brand guide
    • [ ] Media assets (e.g. headers & stock images)

Which category best describes your project? Pick one.

  • [ ] Build / improve applications or integrations to Ocean
  • [x] Outreach / community / spread awareness (grants don’t need to be technical in nature)
  • [ ] Unleash data
  • [ ] Build / improve core Ocean software
  • [ ] Improvements to OceanDAO

Which Fundamental Metric best describes your project? Pick one.

  • [ ] Data Consume Volume
  • [ ] Datatoken Contracts
  • [ ] Total Value Locked
  • [x] Network Revenue
  • [ ] Market WAU (Weekly market participants in Ocean Market or across all data markets)
  • [ ] $ Proposed / $ Funded (Your project helps generate, and fund more proposals)
  • [ ] Other. Explain…

What is the final product?:

A privacy-preserving backend data management system for real-time biometric user data collected through interfaces and wearables, with access to a marketplace of algorithms for analysing this data, combined with safe and secure two-way interactions with third parties and the potential for tokenised rewards.

How does this project drive value to the “fundamental metric” (listed above) and the overall Ocean ecosystem? This is best expressed as Expected ROI, details here.

According to the “value add criteria”, the project will drive ocean usage (1), add to community activeness (3), and add value to the community/ecosystem (4). In summary:

  • The project will drive new users to Ocean protocol for the purpose of analysis of their raw wearable data (via compute-to-data AI algorithms).
  • These same users can then share this analysed data (e.g. labels or tags) with third parties through Ocean in return for rewards and/or experiences.
  • Third-parties that will be driven to Ocean protocol to consume wearable data may include gaming companies (e.g. for enhanced UX), health tracker and “digital medicine” companies, and any company looking to investigate user experience (e.g. from hotels to film producers).
  • Independent AI algorithm developers and small AI companies will be driven to Ocean protocol as they will be able to offer their algorithms directly to wearable users through our product.

Funding Requested: (Amount of USD your team is requesting - see the available funding levels here)

USD$14,825

Proposal Wallet Address: (must have minimum 500 OCEAN in wallet to be eligible. This wallet is where you will receive the grant amount if selected).

0xAda02482517b71210FF58Dd9dC20E938C87C1524

Have you previously received an OceanDAO Grant (Y/N)? Y

Team Website (if applicable): phas3.io

Twitter Handle (if applicable): @LYNX_Technology

Discord Handle (if applicable): xandra#1434 Shamburgularara#7217

Project lead Contact Email: alexandra@phas3.io

Country of Residence: Hong Kong

Part 2 - Team

Core Team

Sarah Hamburg

Alexandra McCarroll

Jakub Smékal

Zachary McCarroll

Advisors

Ruben Amenyogbo

  • Role : Mentor | Engineering (Cambridge) | Serial Entrepreneur & Venture Capitalist
  • Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/rgjamenyogbo/
  • Background/Experience:
    • Ecosystem Growth at Protocol Labs
    • Core & Founding Team at BCG Green Ventures
    • Mentor at Techstars

*Part 3 - Proposal Details (Recommended)

Project Deliverables - Category:

  • Prepare for Hackathon in March. This includes:
    • Publish EEG data on Ocean (dry run)
    • Store EEG data (e.g. IPFS and Ocean)
    • Create marketing materials
    • Publicise Hackathon - Twitter; Ocean channels; Discords; Telegram groups; LinkedIn
    • Distribute Hack sign-up forms
    • Finalise speakers
    • Publish Hack criteria
    • Organise prizes
    • Organise POAPs for participants
  • Publish ‘lite’ paper V3
  • Publish an initial hardware feasibility study for a novel BCI hardware device
  • Launch LYNX landing page (to be located at lynx.phas3.io)
  • Commission branding for LYNX:
    • Animated logo
    • Brand guide
    • Media assets (e.g. headers & stock images)

Project Deliverables - Roadmap:

Done?

  • [x] V2 of our ‘lite’ paper has been read and survey has been distributed.
  • [x] User research has been conducted with n=17 participants. Results published here: https://docs.lynx.phas3.io/research/user-research
  • [x] FAQs from initial ‘lite’ paper feedback have been published: https://docs.lynx.phas3.io/faqs
  • [x] Glossary section has been added: https://docs.lynx.phas3.io/glossary
  • [x] Planned Hackathon with Algovera - we are currently preparing for this and have a date set for 12 March to 26th March 2022. Marketing & sign-up forms to be released shortly
  • [x] Our Telegram group has increased by over 50% in the last month (from 20 to 32 members).
  • [x] Data preprocessing completed for Hackathon.
  • [x] Unique LYNX branding has been designed and created to help communicate our project to a wider audience.

LYNX_Logo
LYNX_Logo908×456 20.2 KB

Roadmap:

As we have completed the initial user research phase, we will now more on to the ‘Problem and Technical Validation’ stage. This requires market research, ecosystem & stakeholder mapping, and an end-to-end technical feasibility analysis. Part of this will be funded by grant 14.

Problem Validation

  • Market Research
  • User interviews will be conducted with a targeted group of participants to understand different market segments and thus identify early adopters to target.

Technical Validation

  • Hackathon with Algovera to test data analysis of human biometric data (first one using EEG batch data).
  • Partnership with Data Union to explore C2D with streaming human biometric data from existing wearable devices.
  • BCI hardware study & plan to examine the feasibility of tattoo electrodes for human data streaming.

Additional Information

  • Both Alexandra and Sarah have worked and completed multiple grants with Opscientia (Project Coral).
  • LYNX has been granted $5000 from the Filecoin foundation for initial user research work.
  • LYNX was granted $3000 in grant round 12 and $10000 in round 13.
VORN and OCEAN data integration - Round 14
#2

Hi @XandraMcC,

Thank you for submitting your proposal for R-14!

I am a Project-Guiding Member and have assigned myself to help you.

I have reviewed your proposal and would like to thank you for your participation inside of the Ocean Ecosystem!

Your project looks promising and I believe it’s aligned with our evaluation criteria of generating positive value towards the Ocean Ecosystem and the W3SL.

The project criteria are:

  1. Usage of Ocean — how well might the project drive usage of Ocean? The LYNX team are looking to build on top of the Ocean stack, integrating Ocean Protocol into the backend of their biometric data management system making OCEAN a key feature of the product.
  2. Viability — what is the chance of success of the project? The team are still in the early stages of developing LYNX however they have come from the Opscientia community where they have been active for some time.
  3. Community active-ness — how active is the team in the community? The team has been active inside the Ocean DAO sharing updates and collaborating with other teams e.g. Algovera. It may also be worth reaching out to the VORN team as you may be able to help eachother through similar technical challenges.
  4. Adding value to the community — how well does the outcome of the project add value to the overall Ocean community / ecosystem? This project speaks to the heart of Ocean Protocol’s Mission and Values, enabling people to own the data coming from their wearables.

Based on the reasons above, I am in support of your project and proposal. I look forward to continuing providing support and feedback to your project.

All the best!

-Your PGWG Guide

1 Like
#3

Hi @XandraMcC, I have registered your proposal and updated your previous grant deliverables for Round 13, so you should be in good standing.

Can you please reply to your R13 proposal w/ your grant deliverables marked as completed?

Thank you.

1 Like
#4

Thank you! And great to hear about VORN - we are now in touch.

2 Likes
#5

congratz on the awesome article on a16z’s website:

You also popped up in Exponnential view

1 Like
#6

Thank you @TimDaub. Really cool how the article has gone ‘viral’

1 Like