Important lessons were learned and immense technical and organizational progress was achieved since OriginTrail inception four years ago. Back then little more than higher ideals and audacity was enough for us founders (including Tomaž Levak, CEO and Branimir Rakić, CTO) to start making positive changes in supply chains. Today, OriginTrail project is a global initiative powered by 15.000 + strong community of individuals and companies affiliated to supply chains, NGOs and those excited about blockchain technology and its potential to redefine the way trust is brokered in 50 trillion dollar industry. The purpose of this blogpost is to shed light on activities we conducted in 2017 to catalyze adoption of OriginTrail decentralized protocol for supply chains in the powerhouse of global logistics — Southeast Asia and China.

First off — a brief recap of interesting stats, facts and unlocked achievements:

100.000 km + of business travels (Shanghai 6x, Hong Kong 3x, Singapore 2x, Bangkok 2x, Beijing 1x and Yantai 1x);

OriginTrail Protocol presented and showcased at 6 conferences, 3 meet-ups and at a demo day;

Admission into Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center’s Innovation Pipeline programme (October);

Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center Innovation Spark Award (November);

Key areas to address in 2018 identified: product safety and authenticity, last mile delivery optimization, data privacy, insurance and international trade finance.

Market entry strategy — from inception to partnerhips

February 2017

Having conducted series of interviews with major companies exporting mainly food items to Chinese market, we identified a vast opportunity to enhance transparency and brand protection by making OriginTrail technology available there. A multidisciplinary team was assembled to do a thorough market research and revamp OriginTrail online presence and demo solutions for the needs of Chinese audiences.

Special thanks goes to Zhuxuezi Zhao (in the middle) — Food Quality and Safety expert for professionalism in helping us understand business landscape in China

Alpha version of the service website — http://origintrail.cn

March/April 2017

To test our initial market assumptions, we took part in Business Roundtables event in the scope of the PMA Fresh Connections: China conference (I described some of the findings from the conference in this blogpost). After talking with representatives of biggest retailers in China such as Walmart, China Vanguard, Alibaba, JD.com to name a few we realized the potential for neutral decentralized protocol capable of managing data from disparate information systems is formidable.

PMA Fresh Connections: China offered a great chance to discuss technological breakthrough in product traceability (more photos from the event at https://www.flickr.com/photos/producemarketing/sets/72157681713394925/page2)

October/November 2017

OriginTrail was the only blockchain startup among 12 selected projects that were admitted into the first generation of the Walmart Food Safety Collaboration Center Innovation Pipeline Program. The initiative recognized OriginTrail’s potential for bringing transparency to supply chains, where there is huge untapped potential for increasing efficiencies on a global level.

Furthermore, in the beginning of November The “Food Safety Innovation Spark Award” was presented at a ceremony in Beijing, in front of the large audience of supply chain, logistics and food safety experts. OriginTrail was the only non-Chinese recipient of the award (you may read more about all three winners here)

December 2017

Last month of the last year was arguably one of the most exciting episodes in the evolution of OriginTrail project. While a lot of attention was put on developing new partnerships and participating at domain specific events, for me personally hosting meetups in Singapore and Hong Kong was the most rewarding experience.