Year Founded:
2015
Organization type:
nonprofit/ngo/citizen sector
Project Stage:
Start-Up
Project Summary Elevator Pitch
Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.
QUO provides to the value chain a tool to manage, validate and record trade. QUO's technology generates real time data, validates human rights and fair trade transactions, and records encrypted informations of each product that contains provenance, manufacturing, among others.
WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"
What if real time data can create textile products with a digital signature to ensure human rights, origin and transparent trade in the whole industry?
About Project
Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?
The apparel industry is a 20 Billion dollar industry with products created by manufacture companies all around the world. Now a days it’s impossible to validate where each product is made, under what conditions, and the trade transaction. Talking specifically on handmade textiles created by women in cooperatives, the only way to validate its origin and authenticity is limited to experts eyeview and not done in every transaction.
Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!
Goods throughout the value chain, goods that start like threads and evolve into products on the store. We combine Block Chain Technology and the exponential decrease on sensors prices and size to create smart data that enables a transparent transactions economy.Each thread producer would generate a unique ID for each product that goes into the market. The ID would be represented by a QR Code. This ID makes the product visible on the process, from the producer to the customer gathering information about the product, human rights, origin, manufactures and financial transactions. Quo provides a better understanding of the apparel market opportunities, products and management wile allow them to have a clear understanding of the value chain.
Awards
Singularity University Project- GSP 15
Impact: How does it Work
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
There are several cases of local manufacturers in the clothing industry that rely in distributors to access to customers. Maria is a artisan that leads a cooperative where she and a group of 9 women get their income through handmade textiles. The way the industry works right now isolate producers, so middlemen are the ones who purchase Maria’s products and having a better understanding of the market get far way better economic benefits from it. Now imagine that Maria’s community can use technology to map their products and that textiles companies could really demonstrate to their clients and measure fair trade.
Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.
We are begining to test our solution’s approach with communities in latin america
and manufacturers related to textile industry. Opportunities to expand to other industries
Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?
Quoperativas system has the capability to spread around other industries and countries. Industries like coffe, cacao, handcrafts or any cooperative base industry are also missing way to prove a fair and human right trade among the value chain. As we move forward to a digital world, a digital signature for products will be needed to validate origin, quality, price, among others. Also we should consider this the first step on moving the economy to a more transparent and uncorrupted system using technologies like blockchain.
Sustainability
Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?
We developed a first prototype ( a mobile app linked with a QR code system and block chain ) with Singularity University funding in which we achieved the first step. Before seeking investment, we plan to test and develop a more sophisticated prototype from money raised through competitions. Quo charges cooperatives and companies a fee to monitor and have access to real time information about origin, manufactures, conditions of labors and financia
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Quo is a combination of a verified database of informations and ongoing monitoring through real time information. The current market solutions are more focused on the origin of the raw materials rather than the respect oh human rights. From a tracking prospective String is addressing the problem but with more focus on the supply chain and not on the ethics. The Quo uniqueness is the verification of autenticity of information through block chain technology, already used to ensure transparency in other fields as bank accounts, for the first time used by us for this purpose in the textile indust
Team
Founding Story
Andrea, one of the co-founders own a company that uses indigenous fabric for creating beautiful designed purses. She was always worried if the cooperative was fairly rewarding the artesans. Also, she preferred some fabric work more than others. In that way, Andrea dreamed about a world where all artesans goods were signed with a digital signature, that we she would know who did each work, so she can choose better and guarantee that they are being fairly treated
Team
The team is multidisciplinary and have experience within supply chain and cooperatives. Andrea founded… dealing direct with fashion cooperatives, Mariana (Biz Dev founder of Agrosmart) and Carlos (Industrial Engineer founder of Cultivando Futuro) are both focused on agriculture supply chain, in solutions that ensure better decision making and trade opportunities for farmes and cooperatives. Teresa, lives in the fashion world in Italy and has a biotech background.
Value Chain: Where does your work fit into the apparel value chain? [check all that apply]
Raw Materials, Manufacturing, Consumption.
Your Role: What is your relationship to the apparel industry? [check all that apply]
Target Population: What stakeholder groups do you engage or empower in your work? [check all that apply]
Brands, Consumers, Corporations, Farmer or Farmer Associations, Factory Workers, Factory Owners, Researchers, Supplier - subcontractor, Trading Companies, Women, Youth.
● Intervention Focus: What are you trying to achieve / influence? [check all that apply]
Access to Finance, Labor Rights (i.e. Collective Bargaining, etc.), Transparency.
Is your project targeted at solving any of the following key barriers?
Hidden from View: Conditions in Forests, Farms, and Factories are Only Visible to a Select Few, A Job is Not Enough: Low-Income Workers Cannot Secure Long-Term Well-Being.
Does your project utilize any of the innovative design principles below?
Disrupt Business as Usual: Target Key Players Who Can Influence the Bottom Line.
Innovation Inspiration: When you first conceived of your project, did you think of it as applicable to the apparel industry?
● Replicating in the Apparel Industry: If your project didn't initially target the apparel industry, how are you specifically tailoring it to do so now?
Having experience in agriculture and textile communities, we designed our project to work on both industries
Are you nurturing or inspiring others to be changemakers? If so, how?
● Tell us about the partnerships that enhance your approach. How have you collaborated with others in the industry to increase your impact?
Handcraft producers in Mexico, Farmers and cooperatives in Brazil and Colombia. Singularity University's social impact area
