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- A new solution for the global supply chain, known as the Virtual Watch Tower (VWT), is in the pipeline, creating a decentralized global community that seamlessly shares data to improve the ecosystem.
- The TLIP community, founded by the IOTA Foundation and Trademark Africa, is the first responder and aims to integrate its solutions into the upcoming global decentralized database.
Despite massive technological advances, the global supply chain and logistics industry has lagged behind, with most processes being opaque, siloed and paper-based. This is all set to change with the advent of a new decentralized solution, and the IOTA Foundation will be one of the initial contributors to this sustainable supply chain solution.
Known as the Virtual WatchTower Network, or VWTnet, the new initiative aims to create an ever-growing global community that contributes to a digital solution. It seeks to foster public and private data-driven analytics and collaboration across all the global supply chain network vectors.
All the members of VWTnet will collaborate and share data to create a public good. As the minds behind it point out, “It is like a lighthouse; nobody can be excluded, and everyone benefits.”
The ecosystem will foster collaboration around specified shipments, underpinned by secure data sharing. The members, however, remain in complete control of this data, which can only be pushed but not pulled; the sharing is governed by a code of conduct that all participants adhere to.
The founders state:
No central database, no central infrastructure, and no central control is needed. There is no star topology but an ecosystem enabling unit that sits with the VWT Entity that holds the rules, registries, and the key to participation in VWT.
Put simply, VWTnet will be the internet of watchtowers. The Swedish and Singaporean governments support the venture and made the first investment but will not influence the decision-making.
IOTA as the First Partner of VWTnet
When it comes to decentralized solutions for global trade, no other network has an edge over IOTA. This makes it the perfect partner for VWTnet.
The IOTA Foundation was the first to respond to a call for partners by the VWTnet team. In his response to VWTnet’s call to action, Jens Munch Lund-Nielsen, the Foundation’s Head of Global Trade & Supply Chains, described the new initiative as “meeting a twin sister.”
The IOTA Foundation has been pushing a similar initiative since 2020 in partnership with Trademark Africa, an aid-for-trade organization with a presence in over a dozen African countries. Known as the Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), it fosters the exchange of secure data and documents.
By partnering with TradeMark Africa, the IOTA Foundation is building a decentralized solution with Kenya’s government and border agencies that assigns digital identities to traders and allows them to fetch, store and exchange documents and data seamlessly.
As we reported, IOTA’s collaboration with TradeMark has opened up several opportunities, including expanding trade in the Northern Corridor.
Lund Nielsen concluded:
It is truly exciting to envisage the potential for real impact through supply chain collaboration that will emerge and evolve over the next years.
