Irthu Suresh: Using Blockchain Tech to Reduce Water Shortages

Atlantis
is
not
just
theoretical.
Across
50
villages
in
the
region
of
Chikmagalur,
India,
Atlantis
deployed
a
Web3
solution
that
incentivized
people
to
effectively
transfer
water
from
the
Haves
to
the
Have
Nots.
A
clever
system
of
“bounties”
encouraged
villagers
to
perform
tasks
that
enabled
this
new
distribution.
And
the
pilot
program
worked.
“We’ve
exchanged
more
than
21,000
kiloliters
of
water,”
says
Irthu
Suresh,
CEO
of
Atlantis.

Giving
a
sneak
preview
of
what
he’ll
share
in
Austin
at
Consensus,
Suresh
explains
why
Atlantis
adopted
blockchain,
the
challenges
they
had
to
overcome
for
onboarding,
and
why
he
wants
the
world
to
know
that
Web3
is
not
just
for
trading
but
that
“we
can
use
this
to
fight
water
problems,
to
fight
poverty.”

Interview
has
been
condensed
and
lightly
edited
for
clarity.

Atlantis
didn’t
start
out
as
a
blockchain
organization,
but
eventually
you
incorporated
the
tech.
What
led
you
to
this?

Irthu
Suresh:
We
were
trying
to
build
solutions
for
climate
change
—
primarily
through
water
—
as
a
Web2
company,
but
a
private
entity
trying
to
build
for
the
commons
was
not
really
striking
a
chord.
And
we
ran
into
all
kinds
of
challenges
with
existing
power
structures,
everything
from
regulations
to
unregulated
mafia
in
India.
It’s
very
easy
to
bring
down
an
idea
if
it’s
built
by
a
private
entity.
All
you
need
is
a
bunch
of
lawyers.

And
that
led
us
to
think,
“How
can
me
and
my
co-founder
become
insignificant
over
time
as
this
system
scales?”
And
that
led
us
to
look
at
decentralized
distributed
systems.
We
figured
that
if
this
works,
no
one
should
be
able
to
bring
it
down.

Then
we
realized
that
there
were
people
who
were
willing
to
harvest
additional
water
and
then
supply
it
into
the
network.
This
was
creating
additional
pools
of
surplus
resources.
And
we
were
like,
“What
if
we
could
build
this
entire
system
on
blockchain?”

So
what
does
that
look
like
exactly?

In
most
parts
of
the
world,
things
like
water
are
heavily
regulated.
And
you
have
these
centralized
grids.
But
as
cities
and
spaces
expand,
often
these
centralized
grids
struggle
to
catch
up.

But
India
is
a
great
example
of
being
built,
historically,
on
decentralized
communities.
You
have
small
pockets
of
villages
taking
care
of
their
needs.
It’s
hyper-local.
So
for
us,
it
was
a
no-brainer
to
bring
some
kind
of
concept
that
solves
for
resource
allocation
problems.

There
are
some
parts
where
water
is
abundant,
and
nobody
cares
about
it.
And
there
are
other
places
where
access
to
water
is
life
and
death.
So
for
the
pilot,
when
we
partnered
with
Mercy
Corps
Ventures,
we
chose
a
specific
location
in
India
where
on
one
side
of
this
hill
there’s
an
abundance
of
water,
and
on
the
other
side
of
the
hill
there’s
a
drought.
And
how
could
people
in
this
region
exchange
this
excess
water?
How
could
we
create
the
infrastructure
locally
itself?
So
for
our
pilot
program
in
Chikmagalur
—
a
rural
region
with
50
villages
—
we
started
with
people
in
different
water
stress
zone.

Interesting.
What
did
your
system
do?

First
we
had
people
locally
volunteer
to
spread
awareness,
then
we
had
local
people
sign
up
to
become
water
harvesters.
Once
we
had
these
harvesters
and
there
was
a
rain
that
was
captured,
there
was
an
opportunity
for
it
to
be
exchanged.

How
does
blockchain
fit
into
this?

We
built
the
product
on
a
mobile
native
app.
On
this
app,
everybody
could
create
a
profile,
sign
up,
and
first
mention
what
their
skill
is.
And
based
on
the
skill,
we
start
giving
you
tasks.
And
these
tasks
are
pretty
much
to
build
up
this
peer-to-peer
water
network.

You
could
take
part
in
surveying,
you
could
take
part
in
water
sample
testing,
you
could
sign
up
as
someone
who
wants
to
spread
awareness
through
workshops,
or
you
could
become
a
harvester.
All
of
these
tasks
are
gamified;
we
call
them
bounties.
People
sign
up
and
then
they
do
the
required
steps
that
are
required,
and
then
they
get
incentivized.
We
knew
this
first
required
a
distributed
ledger
that
is
tamper-proof,
and
we
knew
that
blockchain
is
useful
for
that.

Amazing.
Can
you
quantify
the
impact
so
far?

Yeah.
We’ve
exchanged
more
than
21,000
kiloliters
of
water.
The
network
has
over
3,000
people
and
it’s
covering
50
villages.
Out
of
the
3,000,
predominantly
most
are
consumers
who
are
coming
into
the
network
to
access
water.
But
we
have
almost
150
harvesters
in
the
network.
And
then
we
have
a
bunch
of
surveyors
and
validators.

What’s
a
validator
in
this
context?

Let’s
say
you
plug
into
the
network
and
say,
“Hey,
I’m
a
harvester.”
Then
we
put
out
a
bounty
for
someone
in
the
locality
to
become
a
validator,
who
goes
to
your
place
and
just
validates
that,
“Hey,
these
guys
have
the
infrastructure
for
it.”
So
what
happens,
in
essence,
is
we’re
creating
a
bunch
of
these
local
green
jobs.
And
all
of
these
different
tasks
are
gamified
using
our
bounty
system.

What
problems
did
you
run
into?

One
was
off-ramping.
Especially
in
India,
it’s
tough
to
off-ramp,
because
the
regulations
are
still
in
a
gray
area.

And
then
starting
from
the
first
MVP
we
designed,
at
the
very
onset
of
onboarding,
whenever
we
asked
people
to
connect
to
a
wallet,
that
didn’t
work.
Because
people
were
like,
“What’s
a
wallet?”
And
I
got
an
absolute
schooling
on
UI
and
UX.
We
had
to
really
figure
out
when
is
the
right
place
to
introduce
blockchain
or
the
Web3
terminologies.

And
we
had
to
take
extra
steps
to
educate
people
about
it.
Because
people
are
like,
”Oh,
it’s
crypto.
That
means
it’s
a
scam.”
And
we’re
like,
“No,
no,
hold
on!”
Right?
Like,
there’s
so
much
more
to
it!

What
tokens
are
you
using
to
drive
the
mechanics?

We
do
have
an
internal
token,
which
we’ll
someday
launch.
During
the
pilot
we
actively
used
it.
But
seeing
how
the
Web3
market
works,
we
are
strong
believers
that
unless
we
hit
a
strong
product-market
fit,
launching
a
token
doesn’t
make
sense
for
us.

So
we’ve
integrated
a
mechanism
in
which
different
tokens
can
be
brought
into
the
platform.
If
someone
wants
to
fund
a
water
project
in
Africa
using
Solana
they
can,
whereas
if
somebody
wants
to
do
a
water
project
in
Vietnam
using
Optimism,
they’re
able
to
do
that.
We
really
worked
on
the
interoperability
aspect
of
it
because
climate
change
does
not
care
which
chain
you
are
on.

Well
said.
Last
question:
What
are
you
most
looking
forward
to
at
Consensus?

So,
one
of
the
biggest
lifelines
for
our
project
has
been
Bitcoin.
And
I
know
that
Consensus
is
a
great
place
to
go
and
meet
people
who
have
pioneered
some
of
these
technologies
we
are
using
today.

I’m
hoping
that
we’re
able
to
come
and
talk
about
the
things
that
we’ve
been
doing
with
blockchain,
which
is
not
necessarily
just
DeFi
trading.
We
really
want
people
to
know
that,
“Hey,
we
can
use
this
to
fight
water
problems,
to
fight
poverty.”
The
idea
of
distributed
ledgers
is
super
powerful.
More
people
need
to
know
that
there’s
actual
examples
of
this
being
played
out.

Great
sentiment.
Congrats
on
what
you’ve
built
and
see
you
in
Austin.