# LEDGER application (proof reading)
:::info
Submission deadline: **31st January 2020, 18h CET**

[Guide for Applicants (GfA)](https://s3.amazonaws.com/fundingbox-sites/gear%2F1572602954792-Ledger_OC2_GuideForApplicants.pdf)

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:::warning
Notes for @Kris:
- We said to use British English
- Texts are quite tight with the max number of allowed characters. Keep it in mind.
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## 3 Project description
### 3.1 Project Name
Vocdoni voting system

### 3.2 Tagline
>Describe your project in one sentence (max. 140 characters).

Implementation of a universally verifiable voting system based on decentralised identity & focused on UX and accessibility from smartphones
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### 3.3 Brief description
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@Kris, we re-did this section
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Vocdoni aims to strengthen the relationship between citizens, cities and institutions by allowing everyone to effectively have a voice through a collective signalling mechanism. Voting is its keystone. However, existing solutions are extremely costly and require a high degree of trust, making them unattainable for daily usage.

Our NGI-LEDGER's proposal pursues the development of an affordable, universally verifiable, and scalable voting system. The MVP comprises an app and a FOSS stack that includes the necessary privacy-centric services for managing and validating census.

After two years of research and a pilot project with +30.000 users, we have a design and an early version of such a system by combining DLT, Zero-knowledge proofs and a decentralised identity scheme.

Vocdoni is conceived as a commons, allowing other projects to re-use the infrastructure and technology. Its sustainability is achieved through a subscription model with additional services (KYC, payments or mailing).
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## 4 Excellence
>In this section, you should be providing information on the innovation component of the product/service , its differentiation and on the research component in which it leverages. You should also demonstrate the soundness of the idea you’re proposing and how collaboration and integration of different innovation actors fits in it. It will be scored by the LEDGER’s evaluators (with minimum threshold of 3 out 5 points) with special attention to the ambition of your project and the innovation you’re planning to introduce.

### 4.1 Challenge and Product / Service
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@Kris, This is new
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PROBLEM
Secure voting systems are inaccessible, expensive and are not providing enough guarantees in terms of security, trust and privacy. This precludes innovation of new forms of governance and collective expression.

SOLUTION
We have engineered a voting system that is affordable, scalable and secure, allowing for high-frequency usage that enables a whole range of tools to empower civil society.

Our mobile-first and user-centric approach revolves around a self-sovereign identity model, making usability and user privacy compatible.

PRODUCT
To maximise the social impact Vocdoni is already developing an open governance platform using a decentralised infrastructure. The NGI-LEDGER proposal contributes to the necessary components for secure anonymous voting. This is a critical primitive to enable innovative forms of governance such as liquid democracy or quadratic voting to be widely adopted. Yet, this novel voting system will allow imagining completely new organisational structures.

### 4.3 Description of research component
_Describe the research component related with the topic of Distributed Data Governance or Privacy by Design in which your product/service is leveraging on (max. 500 characters)._

:::warning
@Kris, we re-wrote this section a bit
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We use Zero-knowledge proofs to anonymise votes and verify them on-chain eliminating the need to rely on any authority. The computational cost to run this technology is very high, making it hard to port it to smartphones. We are researching alternative implementations and anonymisation mechanisms such as Linkable Ring Signatures.
We are also exploring how to align a decentralised identity model with the centralised backend of the organisations with a frictionless UX and how to be GDPR-compliant.
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### 4.4 Technology description
>What is the technology (or process) behind your business? Explain the technology you use in order to illustrate how your product works (description of devices, HW, SW, type of communications, architecture of the system, etc) (max. 500 characters).

Our technological stack is fully described in https://vocdoni.io/docs/
A centralised backend is used to manage and generate the census. An Ethereum blockchain combined with IPFS is used as a source of truth for all the metadata around a process and a custom blockchain is used to validate the voting transactions. Anonymisation is achieved using Zero-knowledge proofs generated in the devices. Trust-less gateways are used as interface between the smartphones and the decentralised infrastructure.
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### 4.8 Vertical
>Tell us how does your project fit with LEDGER Strategic Research and Innovation Workprogram? Read it and explain briefly how your project is aligned with the document (max 200 characters).

Our proposal fits exactly with "remote participation to public deliberations, BC in elections & voting, verifiable voter ID, secure record-keeping, voter fraud prevention" (D1.5 SRI NGI-LEDGER-04-2019)
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### 4.10 How will your product/service improve citizens' control over their data? 
>Please, be brief (max. 500 characters)

:::warning
@Kris, we re-write this section a bit
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We make use of a self-sovereign identity scheme. Keys are created and kept on the user's device with the rest of her details. A data exchange protocol allows sharing the necessary credentials with the backend of an organisation to be verified. A built-in consent mechanism generates a signed receipt for how the data will be used. This enables a complete overview of the current and historic usage of the data by the user while allowing organisations to manage a worry-free GDPR-compliant backend.
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## 5 Impact
>In this section, you should show the market potential of the product/service you propose, the business model and commercial strategy as well as how your proposal contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how it will use open licenses. It will be scored by the LEDGER’s evaluators (with minimum threshold of 3 out 5 points) with special attention to the ambition of your project and the innovation you’re planning to introduce.

### 5.1 Addressable Market 
>Show the market potential of your product. Indicate the targeted market, potential clients and end-users as precisely as possible. Illustrate the direction for the future growth (max. 500 characters).

:::warning
@Kris, we re-wrote this section completely
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Citizen participation is an unconsolidated industry with low entry barriers where we have a strong competitive advantage thanks to our technology. Our immediate targeted clients are small city-councils, associations and NGOs where we can iterate and learn fast.

Governmental elections seem a natural next step but the cost of entry is high. Thus, we'll start addressing the private sector with voting as service solutions, privacy-centric market surveying or tools for secure shareholders meetings.
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### 5.4 Strategy and Scalability 
>Indicate the current state of the market you are trying to conquer, ways you can learn from it and your alternative solutions. After that, Indicate the level of scalability of your project, and tell us about your approach to attract targeted clients, especially what channels are you planning on using (e.g. online sales, retail, partners, vendors, etc). To conclude: What are the main features of your product/service that will attract growth? (max. 1000 characters).

:::warning
New
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The voting market is huge but challenging. Governmental elections must fit rigid legal frameworks entailing long negotiating periods and prevent scalability.

The citizen participation market however, has an untapped potential due to a generalised growing interest. It is still very segmented, without consolidated solutions or strong players.

Currently, we are working in alliance with organisations with long experience in participatory processes ensuring that we truly fulfil their needs before opening the platform with a subscription model.

Because of our user-centric approach with the user identity at the core of the platform, organisations can take advantage of the pre-existent userbase, generating an important network effect. We are expecting a strong organic growth based on a combination of privacy guarantees, a design that supports millions of users, and a focus on user experience. A freemium plan and other channels like targeted advertising can attract additional users.

### 5.5 Business model 
_Explain to us your business model. How do you plan to commercialize your product and accumulate shared gains for the entire ecosystem impacted by it? (max. 500 characters)._

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WIP
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### 5.7 Which new building blocks will your product/service contribute to grow open hardware and software ecosystems? 
>Please, write down which applications, algorithms, etc. from your product/service you can contribute to grow open hardware and software ecosystems_ _(500 chars)

All the stack is under a FOSS license allowing it to be self-hosted, forked and improved.

A layer-based design enables each project to reuse the set of components they need, whatever is the blockchain, infrastructure, the application itself or some of the standalone libraries like:
- Personal data consent protocol
- Snarks implementations: census circuit, mobile native proof generation, on-chain proof validation
- Linkable Ring Signatures implementation
- Distributed files synching

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