March 16, 2018 by Hitesh Malviya
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Depending on the report you read, anywhere between 50 – 75 % of the world’s workforce will become freelancers. There will be 2 key drivers of this change –
- Increase in communication and collaboration technologies – the need for a traditional work setup won’t be needed anymore.
- AI and deep learning replacing workforce – A lot of the current work that is being done by people will be replaced by AI-powered applications. This will relegate man-hours to a need basis.
This future isn’t as grim as it sounds. What will happen here is that companies will get a lot more efficient in their operations and the freelance method allows employees flexibility and to truly work on what they’re interested in. On the flipside, the freelancer suffers because of a lack of security net that the conventional job brings. Taking a vacation will be on your buck. Your health and life ailments will be on your buck. Things like pensions etc are completely out of the question.
You can already see this happening in centralised offerings in the Gig economy like Uber. A driver earns when they’re driving people around. And when they’re not, their living expense is on them, without pay. However, like with many other things, Blockchain has a solution for this, and the Blue Whale foundation has just the answer for this problem.
The Blue Whale Foundation want’s to change the gig/sharing economy by leveraging on blockchain as a service to provide freelancers with employment benefits such as paid-time-off, and retirement pensions traditionally available only to salaried employees. Here’s how they aim to do it.
How it works
According to the company’s white paper, the Blue Whale Foundation’s blockchain-based “WORK” System of smart contracts aims to alleviate not only the financial and the legal problems with the gig economy but also the looming concentration of power in the hands of a few tech giants.
Blue Whale’s WORK (Worker Optimized Reward Keeper) system consists of three main components:
- Contribution Activity Manager (CAM) – This keeps track of, and rewards individuals who help to drive traffic to freelancers and small businesses, turning everyone into a potential advertiser. This provides an alternative to the high commission rates charged by centralized ad platforms such as Google AdWords or DoubleClick.
- Decentralized Associated Network (DAN). To build the network, the company provide free SaaS tools such as booking & scheduling software, customer relationship management (CRM) Software-as-a-Service tools, and intelligent advertising solutions. These tools drastically reduce the need for freelancers and small businesses to spend exorbitant sums to stand out through paid ads and search engine optimization (SEO).
- Reward Bank (ReBa). The bank receives and disburses the Blue Whale eXchange (BWX) coins as the currency of this network. This balances the payouts to contributors by the contribution activity manager (CAM), and the revenues generated by the decentralized associated network. The use of blockchain technology allows for the transparent and trustworthy distribution of the BWX coins.
Through these components, the Blue Whale is able to create an ecosystem where good freelancers, SMEs as well as the BWX token investors (due to constant usage, its value increases) are benefitted.
The team
ICOs with a strong tech background is always appreciated and it is exemplified by the Blue Whale team. Founder Will Lee is a Stanford CS grad who did pioneering work in AI and ML and his co-founders have held top positions in Oracle and Samsung. The team’s technology brain is a PhD in computer science who has worked with NASA. On paper, the team looks balanced and exceptionally strong on the tech side.
Their advisory board is stellar, yet very relevant. It includes the likes of the former CTO of Samsung, Ingong Rhee, as well as prominent names in cryptocurrency, like Simon Yu, the CEO of StormX. The company is one of the first to implement the ICON blockchain and key members from the ICON foundation are on the advisory board.
Our Take
We think that the Blue Whale project is going after a really big problem and the system they want to implement seems complex at first glance. However, there is a sense of cohesiveness that comes across their documents and public appearances on what they want to achieve and how.
The team is obviously a super strong point and fans of ICON will be happy to see that their blockchain will be seeing the light of day with an application that might be used really soon. We think this project is worth a second look. Do check out their documents and details at https://www.bluewhale.foundation/
