I wanted to introduce everyone to the IoT that Blockheads Development has been working on since Fall 2018. This project aims to bring transparency to water though our device and blockchain technology, specifically the ICON Network.

We were originally inspired by these two articles:

Firstly, a story published in multiple news outlets of uranium found in the drinking water of Fresno County, California:

“It says you can drink the water — but if you drink the water over a period of time, you can get cancer,” said Alvarez, whose working-class family has no choice but keep drinking and cooking with the tainted tap water daily, as they have since Alvarez was just learning to walk. “They really don’t explain.” -mercurynews.com

Second, published again in many news outlets, a woman passed away in Seattle from a rare brain-eating infection after rinsing sinuses with tap water:

But instead of adding saline or sterile water, she chose unfiltered tap water. About a month later, she developed a quarter-size red rash on the right side of her nose and raw red skin at the nasal opening. -komonews.com

The first story occurred in our very own county, near our city (Fresno, which is the 5th largest city in California). Extremely disappointed with how water quality must be, we felt the need to put water quality data on a blockchain. Of all things in the world, water should be transparent.

At this time it turned out that our software engineering intern, who had just started, educated us about the country where his family originates, Cape Verde which is off the coast of western Africa. He recalls visiting when he was a little boy during droughts and people excited in the streets when it finally did end up raining. My close friend whose family also originates from Cape Verde corroborated our intern and also introduced me to others who currently reside in Cape Verde living day to day with water issues. Many times, people stand in long lines waiting to fill their daily water needs from public fountains. Not proper drinking fountains mind you, fountains that are meant for decoration in public areas. How safe can this water be for people to bathe in let alone consume?

How is this possible in our technologically advanced world? Knowing the problems in Cape Verde further peaked our interest and passion in completing our IoT prototype. We further believe that it is easier and more attainable to introduce new technology to places were there is little infrastructure- let’s build the right way, the first time.

Through multiple connections we are proud to say that we’ve already made some political steps in the right direction to help Cape Verde and their water issues. Please visit www.iconcapeverde.com for more information on what will be our first ICON EEP.

The Prototype for Project Seun

Enter the world of Project Seun (Korean/ 한글: 순, meaning “pure”) our IoT device that will put water on the blockchain. Our prototype for Seun currently measures dissolved oxygen, electrical conductivity, pH, temperature, and turbidity in water.

Our initial tests have also implied that we may be able to measure ammonia, ammonium, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chloride, fluoride, nitrate, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP)/ redox, resistivity, salinity, and total dissolved solids (TDS) in the future. We also believe that unfortunate incidents such as the one that occurred in the second news article above could be prevented by Project Seun.

All this data will be sent in real time to the ICON Network, thus revealing the transparency of water. We believe that there are many opportunities for water related DApps to be built on the ICON Network using this water quality information.

Join our Telegram group for updates on Project Seun, our EEP with Cape Verde and everything else we are up to!

We look forward to continually developing technology within the ICON Ecosystem that aims in providing benefits to all. Make sure to follow me on Twitter for continual updates on Project Seun!