Lessons learned: Enabling crypto bikes with the blockchain-powered ID

Pilot project of AirBie and uPort

Are you curious about the advancement of blockchain pilot projects? Get behind the scenes of relevant use cases with us. Future Atelier has interviewed Oliver Terbu and Alice Nawfal from uPort (spoke of ConsenSys) and Philipp Zollinger (CMO) and Christian Raemy (CEO/CTO) from the crypto bike company AirBie.

Project description:

AirBie has built a prototype of a GPS-tracked Smart Bike Lock to be installed on bicycles for a free-floating bike sharing system. To manage digital identification/managing access rights, AirBie is relying on uPort — where users of AirBie share credentials (stored on their uPort wallet) with the AirBie mobile app to verify their identity and access the service.

Project start date: January 2018

Current project state:

Pilot in Zug since November 2018, open for all citizens of the city of Zug that have obtained a uPort-issued Zug ID.

Next step:

Industrialization of the smart lock to sell it worldwide (including digital ID)

Key learnings of uPort team:

1. The uPort mobile app is in English, but this project was implemented for a German-speaking audience. Localization is key, and we’d like to incorporate additional language options into our app.
2. This pilot required simple identification of a citizen (ie Zug ID) to access a bike. In the future, AirBie and uPort would like to make reputation more dynamic by building incentive mechanisms and rewarding good behavior.

How did AirBie select uPort as the right partner:

1. The City of Zug requested it as they used uPort already.
2. Ethereum based uPort is simply the most established, best blockchain-based digital ID.

How did AirBie support the project:

The AirBie team built the smart lock prototype, developed the corresponding software (back-end and app), integrated uPort into their software and additionally marketed the project.

Key learnings from AirBie:

1. Various hardware challenges to tackle, i.e. the smart lock needs further development
2. User experience is key, especially also in collaboration with uPort.

uPort team gathering in Berlin