Welcome!

Did this get paid out or not? If I recall correctly at the deadline it barely missed by 10 votes, and the necessary votes didn't come in until after the deadline.

https://www.dashninja.pl/proposaldetails.html?proposalhash=bc8d112bfea1dc61f864e04538ce58a8247ac9e945e048c88ae4a51a21493b71

Hi @HenryGeorgist,
No, Superblock didn't pay us. We knew about the vote closing block timestamp deadline and we had the uncertainty of whether the payment would come or not.

We are going to post again during next cycle. Thank your for your support

It's great to hear that you guys are going to put it up to vote again but beware: Core has released information that they will be asking for a huge portion of the funds for this month, you may want to postpone one month further to ensure there are enough funds for your proposal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dashpay/comments/8ogti7/the_dash_core_team_is_going_to_put_in_for_a_big/

Thank you @name3, yes we already know about DCG funds requierements, so we'll wait until a budget windows open again!
Regards

Sorry to hear about that. Hopefully MNOs will be more aware of your proposal and vote earlier so that it passes before the deadline. Continue the good work and looking forward to more updates from you.

I would like to make a further suggestion on this project I know you are focused on the production of food side however my question is what training are you giving the farmers on DASH? If the farmers do not understand what DASH is about will they have confidence in DASH as a payment method?

If you give training to the Farmers on what dash is and how DASH works etc and they see the benefits of paying in DASH could you then also suggest to the Farmers the following:

Farmers also need to sell their goods. They do this to either large food manufaturers or to local distributors depending on the arrangment the farmer has. Bear in mind that the farmer once again has the problem of being paid for the crops he sells. Would it not then be possible for AcroCognitive to at least introduce to the farmer the idea they could get paid in DASH by their customers of their crop? This would mean that the customers for the farmers would also need to be educated on DASH and what it is. I see it that DASH would solve more problems for the farmers and their customers if they understood what DASH was. The farmer would then have a fully integrated payment solution for his entire business. He would be able to buy raw materials for the functioning of his farm in DASH, purchase the instrumentation and technology to ensure his crops grow optimally - paid with DASH and be able to sell his products in DASH to the customers. The customers would also therefore need to be educated in DASH. This then would form a truly integrated solution to the food production.

Since you would need to educated the farmers on DASH anyway in order for them to have confidence in using DASH for your project could you not then also suggest to the farmer that he invites his customers to the training sessions so that they can also learn about how to pay for the food produced in DASH? This would then form a link from industry and the grass roots level right the way through to the manufaturers of the food and then even potentially to the supermarkets themselves. Thinking about this more. The farmers are the key for all of Venezuela taking up DASH in the food industry because all food production stems from the farmers. There are relatively few farmers compared to the thousands of shops. Therefore it makes sense to target the farmers for the education on what DASH is and its benefits and ensure the farmers invite their customers to the training. If the farmers do this then it will solve all their problems and it will also solve all the problems for the farmer's customers. If this could even be taken further that the food manufaturers (customers of the farmers) then invited their customers - the supermarket chains to the DASH training we would have secured DASH as a payment system in the food industry in Venezuela.

Could you outline how you intent to train the farmers on DASH? What is your startegy and how will you being actually doing this. Note that if you managed to also train the customers and the end users (supermarkets) then the DASH price would go up significanlty which would mean that your DASH holdings for this project would also go up significantly. This would give you more resources for your project - and all for the cost of simply inviting all parties involved in the food industry to your training courses.

DeepBlue

Dear @Deepblue,

Thank you very much for sharing your vision of how to promote the adoption of Dash in this important and key sector.

AgroCognitive team has contemplated for the launch of the solution, training workshops where will be invited not only the farmers, but also the suppliers vendros, primary and secundar distributors and farmers associations. Just to began to create an end-to-end dash ecosystem. We agree and share your point of view and trust on it being considered in the training plan for AgroCognitive's launch and commercialization.

From what you mention, the only actor that we would not be considering at this project's stage are the big supermarket chains. Maybe we could reach them in a next stage and cover the whole cycle.

If our proposal archive to continue being funded by Dash (on this cycle we didn't passed), we will be publishing in our thread (in the dash forum proposal updates) the details of our training workshop and this way it can help us to complement and give us feedback before doing it.

Thank you very much for your ideas, we love that you share our vision.
regards!

This project is not overly expensive and has a good risk vs reward profile. Governments have long lived by the idea that if you control the money and the food, then you have absolute control over the population. Perhaps we should put control of the food chain and the money under the control of the people. Honest money, honest food. Support the farmers and the people.

voting yes.

solarguy

Thank you @solarguy for sharing your strategic vision on this project. We agree with you that we all can break with centuries of domination by taking freedom to the food chain! Regards

Hey Jeremy thank you for your question- The key hypotheses section is a newer component of the reports that we are testing, and will be added to all Dash Watch reports in the future pending MNO feedback. It does not indicate that the proposal is still in the idea stage, but instead explicitly states the underlying assumptions that a proposal is making, so that it becomes clear how value should be measured. In other words, the key hypotheses indicate which measurable outcomes are most appropriate for any given proposal.

This team is preparing to dip into treasury funds for many months to make a product. It will cost us more than a $1M and possibly years to know if anyone needs this service in venezuela or if farmers will pay for this. Both of those are big IFs. Others are already doing this.

It is also far fetched to believe that farmers will buy dash to pay for this service. Selling a new product to farmers with usd is hard enough, selling it with dash would make it even more complicated. There is no use for dash here if it wasnt for the funding.

This is a unrelated Capital Intensive business more suited to private investor who understand the product and are willing to help the team in other ways than money.

Hi Jeremy54,

We understand your concern about the future of this project and would like to help you by pointing to the correct premises so that you reach better conclusions

1) In our preproposal we post a whole cash flow for a year and it is shown when the breakeven point would be reached (month 7). From there moment the project is self sustainable with its incomes. You can also could see the total amount of development, training and testing we are asking for funds is USD 207,933

2) Farmers need it? Our work has thrown us that definitely yes. We constantly receive calls from farmers asking when we are going to be ready because they need it. Why? simple, the traditional agriculture's practices are intensive in the use of fertilizers and herbicides and give production results that are not competitive now. Today, more than ever, applying precision agriculture techniques is mandatory to be efficient. AgroCognitive is precision agriculture that instead of using complex and expensive sensors and devices, uses the knowledge of an expert agronomist embedded in a machine learning engine that by visual recognition is able to understand what happens to the plant (the plants say all in its foliage!). If you were a farmer, would not you like to save costs on supplements and improve your production by paying one for an economic analytical service? People have told us constantly YES.

What I can guarantee is that the current vendors for similar technology are very expensive, use devices, sensors and work only with GMO products.

3) Can farmer pay it? As we have said, this service can not be invoiced in local currency because the costs of the cloud platform are USD. We do not want to bill it in USD because we take the customer to assume some banking costs and exchange risks that put the danger of the meaning of this project. This project was designed to be very cheap and use a platform of crypto currencies. Maybe you do not know, but in Venezuela there is a shortage of cash, to such an extent, that the cash is SOLD up to 250% of the price. All people in Venezuela are forced to use online banking and farmers do not escape from it and use the internet to pay and collect, so they are not divorced from electronic transactions concepts

4) Buying USD is easier than buying DASH? no, it is not true. In Venezuela, trading in USD is prohibited and those who seek to change the local currency for USD have to go to a black market full of scams and risks. In Venezuela the crypto currencies have a recent legal framework that allows their operation, there are two exchange platform that are soon to come out. AgroCogntive is working with one of them to develop a direct payment button that will allow the customer to simplify the DASH purchase process. So, definitely and without a doubt, it is easier to buy DASH than USD.

5) We understand your point of view about what activities DASH should fund. We have been honest with this project scope, and we are offering a joint venture, technical feasibility, a market and the opportunity to position DASH at the root of the food chain.

It will always be a decision of the DAO to see if they invest on this business opportunity or spend money in other projects, we respect that completely

Thank you very much Jeremy54 for taking the time to read this reply.
Regards!

Dash Watch May 28th 2018 Report on
AgroCognitive powered by DASH - digital cash - Venezuela & LATAM (month 1) by jesccs
https://dashwatch.org/files/1527510346747.pdf

The dash watch report states "this proposal is still early stage".
Below that it talks about hypotheses.

Can you confirm what have you verified if this project is still in idea stage?

Hi @Jeremy54, I would like to take this thread to make a couple of explanations that may help you understand how is our go to market's roadmap (DW team will reply your question, i guess)

AgroCognitive now is more than an idea, the concept has been already validated from a technological and market demand point of view (including by a jury in an international contest), and its "core" components are already designed. That is to say, the technical and commercial feasibility is confirmed. Previous to Dash treasury funding, AgroCognitive had about 12 months of private's investment to reseach and test.

When the DW team says that we are in an "early state", must be understood that we are just finishing month 1 of the plan (6 months of development are needed). In the next month (month 2) is where we are going into the most important stage: the data collection and analysis. Critical to make them correspond with the visual recognition's results, so AgroCognitive will learn, for example, to recognize a disease and -knowing of which one is, will predict its behavior, affectation of the crop and deliver recommendations (called remediation actions).

We have been very clear and honest with Dash's DAO about it is an innovation project, with some nice precedents by third parties in the industry, our knowledge and expertise, that give us the confidence that we will achieve it!

Thank you for following us and helping us explain our progress to Dash community. Regards

YES to ongoing funding to this project.

Thank your @Criticalinput for your support!

Very good Proposal!

Thank you @Macno for supporting us!

Dear jesccs,
Well done adoption and VENTURE proposal totaly dedicated to Dash.
An other yes vote.
Good luck with your proposal.
Regards,

Thank you @JoL, we are offering a relationship with DASH in the long term and share benefits. We believe in this project and we are dedicating a big professional effort build a market, customer relationship and a great solution!

Food powers a nation. If DASH powers the food, then DASH powers a Nation. What could be a better Ad for DASH?

Voting YES

Yes, and not just a nation. If they're successful, they plan to expand to the whole Latin American region. This is something easily transplantable to other regions.

Very good point @Arthyron.

Certainly that's the way it is DeepBlue. Thank you for your support!

Voting yes, good luck.

Thank your quizzie for your support!

I'm unable to determine what this proposal is actually saying.

Can someone write in one or two sentences what -- exactly -- this proposal offers?

(1) They are selling a service to help farmers be more productive (accepting payment in Dash).
(2) As a bonus, they will also encourage them to use Dash for their suppliers (this would "close the loop" in Dash circulation, increasing the value of all Dash), which they should prefer since it is superior to their local currency.
(3) As another bonus, they plan to offer the Dash DAO to be a shareholder in the project.

For more info about what the actual service is, here is a link to their first proposal with more videos and info: https://www.dashcentral.org/p/AgroCognitiveVenezuela1

Thank you Henrygeorgist for that perfect summary!
@Callalilly you also can visit our post in dash forum:
- preproposal link https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/pre-proposal-agrocognitive-an-ultimate-solution-to-bring-dash-to-the-fields-first-month.29453/
- proposal/updates/news link https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/agrocognitive-powered-by-dash-digital-cash.37783/#post-186475

Thank you for supporting this project!

Voting yes this is worth the risk and price is ok

Thanks for supporting us. We are committed to achieving success with this project!

Voting yes. Thanks for the effort and wish you the best in a hard sector

Thank you very much for your confidence in this project!

How many transactions is your system processing and where can this be seen live? What was achieved with the funding last month?

Thank you very much for your interest in our project, we are excited to tell you details:
1. Transactions with DASH: According to our subscriber projections (considering that we'll start commercial operations in September 2018) and assuming two monitoring service per month per customer, we could be reaching a total of 50K (historical) transactions in April 2019. This does not consider upgrowth for new types of crops that we want to train our machine learning engine for that moment
2. In our post at dash forum (approved proposals / updates + news) we are posting almost daily, activities that we are fulfilling, with pleasure, I summarize what we have until today:
- UX layer designed (50%)
- Logical layer designed (100%)
- Data Layer designed (80%)
- Dash payment engine design (100%)
- Working to sign technical collaboration agreements with the following associations of agro industries and farmers:
- FUNDACAÑA
- SOCA - Aragua
- AZUCA
- CEPSA
- CENTRAL AZUCARERO PORTUGUESA
- Technical collaboration with the agronomy school of the Universidad de Los Andes
- Team Agreement with UPDRONE (local service provider of photographic crop takings with drones). This partnership is needed since next month to train AgroCognitive's Machine Learning engine. UPDRONE will receive payment with DASH
- Team agreement with CryptoLifeX (local exchange DASH platform) to develop a payment for AgroCognitive in CryptofileX's web site.
- Purchase of necessary equipment (stage 1)
- AgroCognitive team moved to its new office
- Data collection for analytics model charged (sugar cane's temperatures & humidity history data, production and brix & pol).

Note: what is brin & pol? Two qualities of sugarcane are measured to determine its quality, Brix and Pol levels. Brix is the soluble solids content of the first phase of juice processing in the mill, successful with a refractometer. Pol (polarization measurement) is the content of sucrose in the juice

Thank you for your support and let us know if your questions were answered completely!

Looks like Dash is going to have to fund this business for many cycles before there is a working product available. As such, funding an unrelated business in a space like agriculture might not be a good fit for for a cryptocurrency that is looking for uses now.

For the same money or less, Dash can support businesses with working products.

It's worth noting that even though AgroCognitive will be seeking additional funding, they are also offering Dash part of their company when DashVentures and the legal framework undergirding it are solidified. Factor that in to the calculations of total value. Most projects are *not* offering part of their company to the DAO.

Funding long-term projects in exchange for long-term dividends will likely constitute a large part of the future activity of the DAO, so whether or not you think AC is worth funding *now,* we'll all need to learn to keep that in mind for the future.

Another point to that end, is that this technology could very well see use *outside* of Venezuela. Do you understand what they're doing? Being able to effectively and more efficiently feed a population is going to be a growing concern over the next few decades, and a universal one thanks to global inequality and economic mismanagement. Growers and buyers and sellers are going to want more efficient, streamlined ways of not only ensuring higher, healthier yields, but also cheaper, faster, more secure commerce.

The thing about technologies, companies, and tech companies, is that they usually start out very small and can grow from there. I don't know what plans AC has for expansion in the future, but I *do* know that their technology and industry is going to be exponentially important in the future, so if Dash wants a piece of that market in the future--especially a piece that builds an ideal use case for Dash--it's much easier to get in on the ground floor.

Thank you very much Arthyron for sharing our vision and explaining it magnificently.

That is what AgroCognitive is about, a solid commitment to the disruptive technologies that today seem distant but that faster than we imagine will be part of our reality. Machine Learning, Blockchain & IoT are megatrends!

Our promise is to share that bet with the DAO in an honest and enthusiastic way. Our growth plans are to reach the sustainability of AgroCognitive and expand to LATAM, which is our native territory and which, according to FAO, together with Africa are going to be the continents that will feed the world.

Thank you very much for your continued support to our project!

That is a short-sighted way of looking at things.

We respect your point of view with humility and we know that innovation projects have followers and detractors.

We believe the investments of the DASH treasury should aim for the results in the short, medium and long term. Ours is medium!

Thanks for your comments Jeremy54!