TangleShare: a Telegram-based Multishare Bot using Distributed Ledger TechnologyIntroduction
TangleShare will be a new bot for a popular instant messaging mobile app to help grow the sharing economy. The bot will connect people who want to share items, share time or anything else and connect them with people in their neighborhood or near their current location when traveling or visiting friends. In addition, the project will decentralize the online-messenger app by adding IOTA tangle to it.
Our main goal will be to create a platform tool which users would use regularly to connect with locals in their neighborhood, suburb, or city (like a Whatsapp feature especially for sharing). It will be a complementary platform to existing efforts in that domain which are also run as non-profit open-source community-driven platforms:“Karrot” for example, which is a website and app for coordinating the collection of food from grocery stores (Kanthaus, 2019) and Foodsharing.de, which is a large German non-profit organization which also coordinates foodsharing and food collection via a website(Foodsharing.de, 2019).Its focus will not only be on sharing food but on sharing anything, from items to time, e.g. when looking for people to play soccer or instruments together.
Details of the Technical DevelopmentMore specifically, we will develop a bot for the widely used app, Telegram, which is a secure, encrypted, tamper-proof messenger app, in order to allow location-based messaging. In addition, we will use a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), specifically IOTA-Tangle(IOTA, 2019), as the transactional layer for data. By using IOTA-Tangle we decentralize the platform to the highest degree currently possible.This allows users to be independent of central servers for communicating with one another and ensures that communication continues to occur even if a centralized server fails. It is an ideal technology for reducing costs while ensuring functionality for an organization that serves small community-based initiatives such as ours.
IOTA is part of the +CityxChange consortium, a Horizon 2020 project, (Pimenta, 2018)and considers itself to be a key enabler technology not only for the internet of things (IoT) but also for the sharing economy of the future. IOTA is registered as an open-source non-profit organisation based in Germany and has been designed to enable high-speed IoT device communication. By combining IOTA with the well-known messenger platform Telegram as a carrier, we gain access to millions of existing users and minimize app development and maintenance costs. Telegram is an open-source cross-platform messaging app developed by Russians (Telegram, 2019).Thus, we are combining two different European open-source codes and building a bridge between two like-minded European organizations and our own. The bot we develop will also be open source under theEuropean license, developing a value-added resource for the European community.
Environmental and Social ImpactTheSharing Economy continues to deliver on its promise of reducing unnecessary resource use and is an important tool in fighting climate change and regional inequalities around the world.
Our bot would give more people the opportunity to easily share their time and material resources with each other. To allow this to function, users would need to add their physical location to the app, and then other Telegram users within their physical area would be notified of their posts. In this way, the app would support local communities, instead of only digital communities.
TheSharing Economy combines social and environmental aspects to address not only resource consumption but also social isolation, which supports more resilient and sustainable communities (McLaren& Agyeman, 2015).These aims support Sustainable Development Goal 12.3: ResponsibleConsumption and Production under which reducing food waste by 50percent is a specific target (UnitedNations, 2019a).It is also supportive of Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 Health andWellbeing, under which there is a specific target related to mental health (UnitedNations, 2019b).We assume that people who give and receive help in their local neighborhood are mentally healthier. Moreover, the values our organization represents support local resilience and the development of local connections and common resources.
Prototype and Existing Networks of UsersA prototype of this platform can be seen on Telegram/(tanglePoll).While in development the test bot will have many downtimes especially in the evenings. The final version will reside underTelegram/(tangleShare). The next paragraph contains a visual setup.Our code will be completely open-source and run on open-source networks or platforms. We will actively advertise the development of this platform on both the IOTA and Telegram network. Moreover, we can also advertise the platform through Foodsharing.de and Karrot’s user groups. Thus, it will be open for community engagements.Participation will be permissionless and every user will have equal rights on the platform (based on Telegram’s general terms and conditions, rights reserved by Telegram). The platform could be developed into a 100% decentralized version in the future, by exchanging the underlying telegram platform with a IXI.tangleShare interface to the emerging ICT-IOTA network (Lambtho, 2019).
Kanthausis a non-profit organization registered in Germany. Its mission includes developing open-source software for sharing organizations. It has already developed a successful and fully-featured website and app called Karrot for supporting the collection of food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Karrot is actively being used in 19cities every week to coordinate volunteer work. In addition, Kanthaus developers maintain the successful German website Foodsharing.de which coordinate food collection and distribution across theGerman-speaking world. This project would be publicized through this network which has thousands of members.
Prototype and Existing Networks of Users
A prototype of this platform can be seen on Telegram/(tanglePoll). While in development the test bot will have many downtimes especially in the evenings. The final version will reside under Telegram/(tangleShare). The next paragraph contains a visual setup. Our code will be completely open-source and run on open-source networks or platforms. We will actively advertise the development of this platform on both the IOTA and Telegram network.Moreover, we can also advertise the platform through Foodsharing.de and Karrot’s usergroups. Thus, it will be open for community engagements. Participation will be permissionless and every user will have equal rights on the platform (based on Telegram’s general terms and conditions, rights reserved by Telegram). The platform could be developed into a 100% decentralized version in the future, by exchanging the underlying telegram platform with a IXI.tangleShare interface to the emerging ICT-IOTA network (Lambtho, 2019).
Kanthaus is a non-profit organization registered in Germany. Its mission includes developing open-source software for sharing organizations. It has already developed a successful and fully-featured website and app called Karrot for supporting the collection of food that would have otherwise gone to waste. Karrot is actively being used in 19 cities every week to coordinate volunteer work. In addition, Kanthaus developers maintain the successful German website Foodsharing.de which coordinate food collection and distribution across the German-speaking world. This project would be publicized through this network which has thousands of members.
Technical Setup
Welcome to TangleShare
Project is subject to changes and development. E.g. bot is taken offline for many hours every day. So expect the unexpected before first release.
Find the current test bot here: https://web.telegram.org/#/im?p=@tanglePollBot
Type "/start" to interact or call it via inline mode from any group @tanglePollBot to search items in your vicinity.
References
Foodsharing.de. (2019). Foodsharing.de. Retrieved 7 April, 2019 from https://foodsharing.de/
IOTA. (2019). Retrieved 7 April, 2019 from iota.org
Kanthaus. (2019). Foodsaving.World. Retrieved 7 April, 2019 from (Karrot:https://foodsaving.world/)
Lambtho. (2019). IOTA Omega-ict tutorial: Chat.ixi and Report.ixi. Retrieved 7 April, 2019from https://medium.com/@lambtho/iota-omega-ict-tutorial-chat-ixi-and-report-ixi-d3ac3f78eac4
McLaren, D., & Agyeman, J. (2015). Sharing Cities: A Case for Truly Smart and SustainableCities. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Pimenta, W. (2018). Green light from the EU Commission for IOTA and the European smartcity consortium +CityxChange. Retrieved 7 April, 2019
Telegram. (2019). FAQ. Retrieved 7 April, 2019 from https://telegram.org/faq
United Nations. (2019a). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved 7 April, 2019 fromhttps://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg12
United Nations. (2019b). Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved 7 April, 2019 fromhttps://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg3
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