Research the Data Economy
Mission
Active community outreach to leading German think tanks and research institutions that are active in the following research areas: economics, data economy, open science, open data, research data management, web science, science 2.0, AI and machine learning.
Name of Project
Research the Data Economy
Website
Proposal Wallet Address
0x01e66950353400E93AEe7F041C0303103E2ef5Ab
The proposal in just one sentence
By introducing Ocean Protocol and the Ocean Marketplace as a potential Web3 open science hub to leading German research institutions I want to enable economic research in this field and promote Ocean as “connecting tissue” and “reserve currency” of the data economy. I hope stimulate research interest and more (to be explained).
Categories describing the project
[1] Outreach / community (grants don’t need to be technical in nature)
[2] Unleash data (and new use cases)
[3] Build / improve applications or integrations to Ocean
What problem is your project solving?
Zero: A general framework is needed for the Economics of Science, especially in the time of data economy. Ocean can play a vital role in this regard, because it introduces market mechanisms to data services and it builds on FAIR data governance at the same times. FAIR means—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable.
We are currently reaching a tipping point for the European economics of science and we must employ all possible assets: A mature model of the data infrastructure, full adoption of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), openness for citizens’ and businesses participation in building the knowledge society and addressing the new technologies at our hands, while establishing of an ecosystem of excellence.
The potential role of Ocean Protocol within this is not to be underestimated. While it can be most likely integrated with the European data infrastructure and into the EOSC as connecting tissue, it also enables the participation of every citizen, company, institution through relatively low entry barriers. The pricing mechanism and the integration in capital markets will likely help in establishing an ecosystem of excellence while the openness of the public blockchain allows excellent research on the dynamics of an evolving data economy that values privacy and security.
I very much thank Michal Boni for his publication " Economics of Science in the Time of Data Economy and Gigabit Society", URL: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-52391-6_3
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The potential of Ocean is unknown to most companies and (research) institutions. By enabling cutting edge research on the future role that Ocean might play in the data economy and the new market mechanisms and business models that will create new value chains this potential of Ocean Protocol and decentralized marketplaces for data service can be proven as highly relevant. As all transactions take place on a public blockchain Ocean Protocol delivers a perfect sandbox to explore the unfolding of a new data economy in real time.
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Ocean Protocol needs adoption and proven use cases. By introduction to leading think tanks and new people and institutions outside the Web3 ecosystem mainstream adoption can be supported and new use cases can be created and tested.
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We need more tests and experiences with, i.e. Trusted Compute-to-Data Algorithms. Some might have the expectation that this will miraculously just happen on its own. It will not. Connections to other rich ecosystems full of data and data scientists have to be created by actively reaching out to other communities. At the same time the market needs to test thoroughly, experiment, look for flaws and gather experience so that it becomes safe to use. The beta has told us a lot about the time it takes to find and cure flaws and to establish basic reputation. Only when it becomes safe and trustworthy the really valuable data will come to the market. This requires education, good examples, best practices and a lot of training (
Project Shrimp ) and a lot of this can be achieved using open data and data from open science. Open data could be found as an endless supply that powers the first life cycle of the Ocean Market. -
We need more data consumers. A market grows and thrives on transaction volumes. Hungry data consumers looking for high quality data and innovation make a market a lively place buzzing with economic activity and development.
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We need to establish a full chain of value creation. Once the critical amount of publishers, data services and consumers meet in a marketplace new services and new chains of value creation can be created.
All of this requires patience, dialogue, active listening and years of hard work and the ability to endure setbacks. These qualities are sometimes rare in the financial world and crypto space, but they are highly available in this gem of a project and the wonderful and dedicated Ocean community.
Description of the project / How does this project drive value to the Ocean ecosystem?
- By seeking out active contact to the scientific community in Germany I inquire about potential use cases, applications, research potential, favorable conditions and (legal) requirements that matter to the scientific community.
- By making contact and listening to other communities, I advertise the Ocean Protocol and the Ocean Market to leading data scientists and thought leaders.
- This communication “outside the bubble” collects valuable feedback and hopefully establishes research interest, new publications, a stream of visitors, new data and new publishers.
- I see absolutely no reason why Ph.D. and Postdocs should not work in this exciting new area of research unfolding right before our eyes.
- If Ocean qualifies it could be a valuable addition to the European Open Science Cloud in itself, connecting highly heterogeneous individual infrastructures to a bigger structure that allocated resources efficiently following the highest data and data science quality.
- Compute-to-Data would very much profit from open data as it is available in a wide variety, has a lot of proven use cases for many businesses and many already developed algorithms that could be ported to the Ocean market to work on other data sets. However, there is not much experience on how to deploy the privacy conserving trusted Compute-to-Data feature in the Ocean market and open data offers a very safe option to further develop this critical feature before the big fish enter the market.
- In the worst case scenario we will learn about factors that actively hinder the participation of other communities which would be a very important step to address these concerns or obstacles.
The Ocean market has very much to offer. Let us talk about it and introduce the scientific community to Ocean.The scientific community is a very dedicated, innovative community with a wide variety of data, skills and hunger for new applications while being backed with huge research grants by the European Commission, i.e. Horizon 2020…
All three; the open data, the science community and the Ocean Market could benefit from each other, why not give it a shot?
What is the final product (e.g. App, URL, Medium, etc)?
As I am not a developer the result will not be an application, but answers and statements gathered throughout a hopefully fruitful series of dialogues. These shall be presented and disseminated during the ongoing process as blog posts and shall be collected in what could be a Medium article (or other format if it is prefered by the community).
If interest has been stirred, assistance will be given to new participants to create new datasets in the market, find the right data and to get in contact with the developing community. This will include demonstrations and workshops. Interested persons and institutions will also be directed to the open arms and the guidance of the Ocean Academy.
Project Deliverables
- I make contact with at least five leading economic research institutions in Germany
- At least one summarizing article will be published on an open platform, i.e. Medium.
- Hopefully a new research project can be initiated in at least one institution
- I aim to convince at least one institution to create an own open science hub based on the Ocean Marketplace / Compute-to-Data feature as proof of concept to the scientific community
- New participants to the Ocean Academy can be attracted and maybe become future Ocean Ambassadors that are actually rooted outside the crypto space
- In the long run this would aim towards an integration of Ocean Protocol into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
- I hope that somebody is motivated to make an academic degree based on research on the data economy using Ocean Protocol
Project Deliverables - Roadmap
- January will be used to create a pitch deck for research institutions (nearly completed)
- January and February will be used to identify a number of institutions and individuals that either contribute to the EOSC, participate in research in the data economy, or research data management and/or open science/data science (50% completed)
- January and February will be used to get in contact with the identified institutions and individuals to introduce Ocean Protocol and the give demonstrations
- February, March and April will be used to summarize and build on the results and hopefully end up with a new application for the shipyard funding programme and a new research project by a leading German think tank.
Any prior work completed thus far?
- A number of important actors and data providers have already been identified.
- First contact has been established and a first pitch deck will be submitted within the next two weeks.
- A number of research papers, publications and sources of information have been gathered, sighted and analyzed to be included in the pitch deck.
What are key milestones and the target dates for each milestone?
- By end of February I made contact with at least five leading economic research institutions in Germany
- By end of March the results of the conversations have been summarized in a blog article
- By end of March it should be clear if one of the contacted research institutions is willing and able to establish a new research project based on the above mentioned activities or if Ocean Protocol and the Ocean Marketplace is included in existing research projects.
The Team
Just me. A dedicated problem-solver and Ocean enthusiast that believes in an inclusive decentralized global data market for everybody.
Kai Meinke, Product Owner, Economist and Global Citizen from Kiel, Germany
Some background with potential relevance to this grant proposal:
Co-Founder of the YES! - Young Economic Summit. The YES! – Young Economic Summit is the largest German school competition on economic and social challenges for teams of the grades 10 to 12 working with over 200 researchers of the leading economic think tanks from all over Germany. While no longer active full-time in this project I remain connected to various research institutions and researchers.
Worked as project manager or the ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, the world’s largest research infrastructure for economic literature, in the Area of Digital Information Infrastructures. It is a mission of the ZBW to make information accessible and visible for all. Open Science, Open Access, Open Tools and digitization of science make a large part of the ZBW’s vision and mission.
Worked as project manager for the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, one of the world’s leading economic think tanks, building the Global Economic Symposium. The Global Economic Symposium (GES) has established a significant international reputation as a research-centered, solution-oriented high-level conference and has attracted Nobel Laureates, Heads of State, Ministers, CEOs of major multinational companies, heads of international organizations, leading representatives of civil society institutions, and many other major decision makers and thought leaders in the past years. It is now called the Global Solutions Summit.
ROI
An average publisher/data service provider can be considered to have a higher stake in the market than an average user. Based on the time horizon and growth of the market approx. 30.000 $Ocean for a potential new publisher. In the best case I assume 2-3 new publishers on the marketplace.
Publishers Total Value Locked (TVL) about 30.000 * 3 = 90.000
An average high quality data pool can be estimated to have at least at TVL of 100.000 $Ocean over a year. To calculate this for 3 publishers we assume three pools per publisher.
Pools Total Value Locked (TVL) about 90.000 * 9 = 270.000
Trade volume will generate network revenue. While it is difficult to predict the total usage over a year we add another 50.000 on network revenue over the course of a year.
Bang: 90.000 + 270.000 + 50.000 = 410.000
Buck: 10.000 (+ following DAO funding rounds if positive signals are received)
Chance of Success: 60%
Roughly estimated ROI over a year: 41 * 0,6 = 24,6
This does not yet include the really big picture to achieve an integration in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This would be a longer term goal and a tremendous success.
Once up and running, the EOSC will offer Europe’s 1.7 million researchers and 70 million science and technology professionals a platform to store, share and reuse their data across disciplines and borders. With this in mind starting research is just the first step to unlock a much bigger development.
Please take this example and create your own proposal for the Ocean DAO.
If you do not vote for this proposal I do not take it personal. If you have a better idea, I hope I motivated you to bring your own proposal forward to the Ocean DAO. This lives from a high number of ideas and contributions and I am very excited to see even more proposals here in the near future.
