Decipher 2022, a second annual gathering of the Algorand foundation held in Dubai was a massive success. The active community engagement portrayed confidence in the existing blockchain technology. The following is an exclusive interview of delegates conducted by TheNewsCrypto.
Ownify
Ownify Technologies Limited was founded in October 2022 and registered with the Dubai International Financial Center registrar of companies. The ecosystem of Ownify offers a complete WEB3 platform for developing, distributing, and interacting with non-fungible tokens tied to goods or services. Through the blockchain, They’re bridging customers and businesses while enhancing data privacy and transparency.
The following is an exclusive interview with Carl Helou, the managing director of Ownify Technologies Limited by TheNewsCrypto.
Why the name Ownify? What does it indicate?
It goes straight to main focus of the project itself, fighting counterfeits while securely owning an item, let’s talk about how the blockchain will be a game changer in the near future. Ownify aims to be a global standard tool for registering and proving authenticity & ownership of both physical and digital items, while providing an innovative solution for the global track & trace markets, using the blockchain technology. Today, both Businesses & End users are suffering huge losses and difficulties due to the problem of counterfeiting, and so it became more and more difficult to differentiate genuine from a fake product or item, copy A and the list goes on and on, So, we wanted to use blockchain technology, mainly the non-Fungible token algorithm, and tackle this issue at its core offering full protection & transparency to all stakeholders of any market. More precisely, and simply by creating digital twins for any product, for multiple industries following a systematic approach, and so, we first launched in the UAE market, offering end solution for the luxury, electronics, and the pharma & healthcare industries, still we are open to many industries. Our decentralized app is a portal for individual consumers and corporate clients to access the Ownify DPID System and a suite of synergistic features. Just to explain, a Decentralized Product Identification is a non- fungible token (NFT) that provides a permanent, immutable record of data associated with the product. This can include commercial origin, previous owners (in the supply chain and secondary market), industrial processes or ingredients, health warnings and compliance with various standards.
Using our marketplace, showcasing different wallets, Business and user wallets, When I say business wallet, I mean brands, big businesses, distributors, retailers & malls (shops), meanwhile user wallets are simply the end users such as me and you, the receiving party, the future traders of the secondary marketplace. So, it’s like the hierarchy of the market itself. So each one in this market has its wallets. For business wallets, If you go for the brand themselves or manufacturers, they create, let’s say a branded watch, So the manufacturer itself, will be able to create the NFT itself for each product created. So what do they give? They give actual proof of authenticity of the product and they also give ownership of the product showing this product belongs to whom, all backed by blockchain. And also the client will be able to send this NFT to another person who is going to buy this product from him, this is where the secondary marketplace shows up, but it’s a 100% safe and transparent marketplace where all data is backed by blockchain and secure contrary to today’s marketplaces. Now, following what we just described, Businesses can easily trace any item scanned on the Library, and this is where we do offer an innovative solution for the traceability issue faced by big businesses, called the track and trace market, now Businesses can combine our complimentary blockchain based solution with available technologies such as (GTIN, NFC, RFID) technologies, so we don’t even have to compete with them, and even add any future solution that might be available on the market to Ownify, our infrastructure will lead to data, value and transaction flows with increased transparency, more security and automated administrative operations through the use of smart contracts, to make it simple, its what we lack today.
Now, anyone who would be able to use Ownify by itself as a user or any stakeholder on the market would be able to scan any product, by simply scanning its barcode / GTIN, scanning QR code or by NFC tap labels, and he will be able to track the full history of the product offering more clarity and security to our users, That’s the first service offered to everyone, Okay. That’s the first utility used mainly by the community. Second thing, as I said, we have the business wallets themselves, by scanning and creating digital twins or their items, they create authenticity, but also create ownership certificates, mainly at the level of purchase of the item, the client will have the product registered in his name proving it’s his while proved genuine by the manufacturer, all of which is coded on the NFT, I shall add many utilities, the NFT itself will also be a proof of guarantee of the product, so in the future the client will refer to the same NFT to prove its guaranteed in case of any future product defect, now the same client who received the digital twin, will be able to trade it on our decentralized marketplace for the future, and this marketplace is characterized with innovative services such as, a lost and found directory backed by blockchain, web3 payments based mainly on stable coins, loyalty points with many rewards and staking possibilities in order to get passive income…
Also, to add, Businesses will have access to an innovative and lifelong CRM system, they will be able to contact current owners, no matter how many times the product has changed hands, due to the traceability offered across the product lifecycle. And we have other features, such as we have, of course, the unified Wallet, in which you put all the valuables, digital valuables in it for any future need. That’s one. As for the payment system it will come in the near future although its infrastructure is ready on the dapp. You’ll be able to also do crypto payments in the near future.
Many utilities are constantly being added on our Dapp, and are all available on our website.
If we buy a product, that code or that NFT will give us the authenticity of what belongs to the business. What happens if it is for resale?
Once the client bought a certain item, and after receiving its corresponding NFT, what previously belonged to the business now belongs to the buyer, all of which is recorded on the NFT itself, he can then trade it using our Marketplace and transfer it to whoever he wishes for, and the cycle goes on and on, that’s how it usually happens, but now its fully transparent and secure. In the blockchain space, always talking about decentralized ideas. And of course, We focus on decentralizing the data of the products contrary to the past, The PDID is a product decentralized ID. When talking about decentralizing the data out of products, this is we’re talking business now.
Now every user will have full control over his products data, while keeping their personal data safe, we’ll stop talking about the people and their own identity by focusing on the products and data in businesses, big businesses, e-commerce. Today, users gets bombarded with constant non-direct advertising campaigns, while having no control to stop it from the user side, but more importantly, users can’t monetize their own products data, usually businesses and data analytics corporations use the data of the users, their personal data, preferences… and they themselves monetize the collected data, meanwhile, using Ownify decentralized marketplace we did solve the issue, users will have full control over their products data (keeping their personal data secured), end users will actually get rewarded for sharing their own products data from marketing analytics and research organizations linked to Ownify, and that not only benefits the end users, also businesses, since now businesses, against the shared data by the users themselves, will be able provide focused & product-related marketing data and insights from shared customer product data, it’s a win/win situation for both businesses and end users, by conducting business in a fully transparent way, which could only exist for a blockchain backed economy.
And one more thing, the last thing concerning the CRM system was talking about later on the marketplace we’re building in the coming months, you will have, for example, targeted marketing. Because as I said before, you’ll be able to control your data. Which means people are going to do marketing. Instead of just throwing everywhere, they’re going to go straight to the person who owns this product and they will give them, for example, prompt messages about products that are of similar interest to it.
At what phase is Ownify presently at, and when can the users expect the mainnet launch?
Now we have a fully functional BETA Android APP, We’re in the final stages now. But for the coming month, I’m just going to give you a small idea, we’re going to incorporate the CRM system explained above, while the API part is done.
Also, to add, our technology is a green tech, using Ownify you’ll be able to have full Traceability when it goes to recycling products. Because this way, for example, let’s say cell phone or electronics, you’re going to throw it, so instead of doing that, you as a user, by simply pressing a button, you will mark the product as destroyable. This way, our future recycling providers partner will get instantly notified, this way they will be able to collect those items for recycling, it’s a targeted recycling system. If you want, they will come directly to the client who wants to recycle his product, which in turn he will get rewarded for sharing his item.
Today, customers will experience a seamless shopping experience, the blockchain backed CRM system will replace the unpleasant experience customers face while being in a shop, instead of spending extra time to give the phone number, email, and all related informations needed, now you just scan or tap and go, its one of the services offered for the shops who are partnered with Ownify, while being KYC’D only once per user lifetime.
Let’s talk about Decipher. So, what’s the first thing that comes up?
Myself, I see the future of blockchain itself. Because I’m mainly talking about Decipher, algorand. The first thing I have in mind about algorand is everything is sustainable, industrial, even governmental. If you see everything they’re doing now and for the coming period, algorand itself is going for the big people, going for governments, for big corporations & industries, and projects built on Algorand focus a lot on real life use cases, taking a different approach from the trend we saw on the overall crypto market in the past.
On a technical side, Algorand blockchain is proven to be more scalable, secure, fast with frictionless fees, which is exactly the infrastructure needed to scale our whole ecosystem. Exactly. The perfect technology to be built on is Algorand. And especially for this kind of project and all the projects that go to the next step of taking, I mean, just blending blockchain with real businesses.
There’s a particular sector, the blockchain that is the cryptocurrency sector, which is bottoming down, which is in the bear market. like us, it does affect other peer sectors like the NFTs metaverse. And since you are into NFT, what is the major impact that you are seeing because of the crypto in NFT?
I’m going to talk first of all about Ownify. That’s the perfect time for us to go in, its well known that solid projects give birth during bear markets, and that’s true, simply building a technology in a bear market means that its use case is solid, and that the project is not hyped, so mainly its revenue model is not affected nore initiated from within the crypto markets. I’m going to explain why I just explained the business side of Ownify. As you can see, we took this technology and all its utilities. the revenue model is generated from real businesses the real world, and not from the crypto markets. Of course, we also have our token, but we found a way to incorporate the token itself and its utility with real use cases, but also we are not completely independent of the crypto market as well, it’s just its effect is negligible in case of any future downtrend.
Who is the impactful person?
I have a few people to be honest, but the one that was the beginning in my head doesn’t have Silvio Micali & Stacey Warden, offering us the needed infrastructure in order to scale and do the transition between the said web2 & web3 world. solid technical team and with an amazing vision and their vision is just going through that transition, and gain adoption.
According to you, which is crypto-positive geography?
We started in Dubai and UAE in general, the perfect location for web3 & blockchain mass adoption, the country shows immense potential when it comes to adopting newest technologies, and mainly web3 technologies, blockchain and even crypto, also, the reason why 2023 is the year where regulations and new laws will take place in the country, facilitating businesses and encouraging the web3 trend and shift of businesses, which is why we decided to launch in the UAE a year ago, knowing that it will be a regional and international hub for the near future.
What is the plan for Ownify in 2023?
So now the launch is pretty soon, management took decision from the beginning to launch only when we have a fully working technology, contrary to the usual trend of the crypto projects in general, where projects launch their campaigns before even delivering their technology.
we’re now targeting big businesses due to the solid connections we have thanks to our core team & reputable advisors on board, for the UAE market, also internationally. with solid players on the Indonesian market & the French market who will assist us in the coming phase for greater expansion.
The main focus for 2023 now we’re starting on the business side. As mentioned earlier, we’re focusing on the luxury, electronics, pharmaceutical & healthcare industry, along with local businesses such as Oud perfumes on the UAE, we also have signed partnerships internationally opening up to the Cigar industry & other retails businesses.
