The problem Ethereum Hack: Karbonize solves

Main Issue: Global Carbon Footprint per Individual

Secondary Issue: Side Income generation

The POC for Karbonize includes a mobile application where the users can register their accounts and based on some initial questions, they'll will be given a weekly carbon emission allowance for travel. This is based on the same model as implemented by Lahti in Finland: [https://carbonwatchdog.org/lahti-finland-carbon-rationing/]

When the app is given location permissions, it runs a ML model to determine the mode of transport for users and deduct the Karbon Kredits(weekly carbon emission quota). This credit management is done on the blockchain for verified user accounts.

The users can also trade their Karbon Kredits and all the trade transactions execute on the blockchain.

In essence, Karbon Kredits are just ERC-20 Tokens that are in limited supply, when users buy or sell kredits, they trade these tokens with ETH & their Price is decided by the ratio of Total Kredits: Available Kredits.

Challenges I ran into

1. The idea was initially to build a website, but certain features of the site required the users' location permission and the geolocation API to run in the background. After a lot of tussle between using service workers on react, decided to completely switch over to Ionic and build a PWA & Mobile App.

2. The aim was to detect the users' mode of transport, initially went for a manual option but that would compromise the integrity of the app. Came across an article: [https://www.sentiance.com/2017/12/04/transport-mode-classification/] which helps detect the transportation mode using a CNN taking in data such as frequencies emitted by the device in the vehicle, gyrometer readings, accelerometer readings and GPS. This will be added in the later iterations of the project.

3. In Lahti, Finland, this pilot program has started gaining traction and the users get incentivized to use the app because of carbon trading markets. When users emit less CO2, they save their carbon credits which they can sell it back to the market for some price. (after gaining critical traction, the plan is to switch to an Automated Market Maker as used by UNISWAP and other Dexes)