The loss of ecosystems and climate change threaten human well-being and biodiversity alike. Grassroots movements, as well as international institutions, call for urgent systemic change. As a non-profit foundation focused on the positive social impact our technology can have, the IOTA Foundation wants to support the sustainable transformation of our society. But what does systemic change mean and how can IOTA contribute to it on a global scale?

First of all, we need strong partners: the IOTA Foundation officially joined forces with the European Institute for Technology (EIT) and EIT Climate KIC, the leading bodies of the European Union to connect and scale sustainable solutions across the continent. Furthermore, systemic change requires more than simply changing the rules of our society.

The sustainable transformation has to consider human behaviour as well as the deep code underlying our cultural practices and institutions. This transformation requires us to re-think existing avenues to international development by employing experiments and trusted data to design evidence-based solutions. Lastly, we need a bottom-up approach to leveraging crowd intelligence and empowering individuals.

This is a pretty complex challenge, so IOTA is delighted to announce the participation in EIT Climate KIC´s Deep Demonstration on Long Termism alongside an interdisciplinary group of exciting organizations such as the Technical University of Zurich (ETH), Darkmatter Labs, Luvent Consulting, and the Finland Futures Research Center at the University of Turku among others.

Together with the dedicated IOTA community, the Deep Demonstration will unite the diverse skill sets necessary to make this vision a reality. Riyong Kim, Director of Decision Metrics and Finance at EIT Climate KIC remarks: “Attempting to transform action and mindsets to more longer-term thinking will critically need the opportunities and possibilities that deep tech can provide, including the capabilities which IOTA can bring. We are very excited about collaborating with IOTA on this ambitious deep demonstration”.

The Deep Demonstration on Long Termism will highlight how short-term thinking in investment cycles and in ideas of economic value creation are standing in the way of the regenerative economy we need to foster. Together, we will forge experiments that help shift attention to longer-term time horizons. Under the Deep Demonstration, IOTA will explore the role of Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to drive new insights, unlock sustainable financing solutions, and form open data marketplaces that serve as a collaborative commons in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

With our focus on supporting bottom-up innovation, the IOTA Foundation is actively looking for developers, innovators and problem owners from the community who want to leverage the Tangle — the underlying data structure of IOTA — for improved ways of understanding the effects of individual action on the environment and incentivizing shifts toward behaviors that help to regenerate rather than deplete vital ecosystems.

The design group at work in Berlin

We are calling on the IOTA community to reach out to us to participate in the Deep Demonstrations, empowering individuals to be the change they want to see in the world. In the coming weeks, we will share more information on how you can become involved to implement your ideas over the course of the Deep Demonstrations alongside the IOTA Foundation.

Dr. Harald Rauter, Head of Emerging Technology Experimentation at EIT Climate KIC on the new partnership: “On the transformational path to a sustainable world in line with the 1.5°C scenario connected devices, data and data-driven decision making will play a critical role. I am exhilarated to be able to welcome the IOTA Foundation both to the EIT Climate-KIC family as well as to the Deep-Demonstration on Long-termism. The IOTA Foundation holds those values so dear that EIT Climate-KIC considers key for a sustainable data-driven future — privacy, social inclusion and digital empowerment. I am deeply inspired by IOTA´s passion, the willingness to experiment and the believe in the power and ingenuity of community-driven innovation. Together, we will achieve great things!”

Dr. Julie Maupin, Director of Social Impact and Public Regulatory Affairs at the IOTA Foundation, on participating in the EIT Climate-KIC Deep Demonstration Project on Long Termism: “Taking part in this project gives us the opportunity to tap into the amazing creativity and passion of IOTA’s open source community. The long termism perspective invites each and every one of us to take a fresh look at the essential questions underlying sustainability. Namely, what hinders us as humans from thinking about the long-term consequences of our actions? What keeps us from building these consequences into our choices upfront? How would we need to structure our economic incentives, our social incentives, our habits and cultural mindsets differently so as to conscientiously shift our individual and collective behaviors onto a more sustainable track for our planet and for future generations? And last but not least, what role can new technologies like distributed ledgers and machine learning play in helping us bind ourselves to the mast of long-term sustainable societies and economies? We can’t wait to see what kinds of ideas our community members around the world will come up with. We’re looking forward to some truly broad and radical thinking. Let’s dream it, and then let’s build it!”

If you are interested in joining our quest, please contact us under impact@iota.org.

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