This past year working on Holo-REA has been a fascinating, exciting and occasionally overwhelming foray into the evolution of distributed systems. In that time, a small group of contributors has managed to prototype a robust economic ledger which not only manages supply chain tracking, but also facilitates complex operational planning and business process management.

It is truly a simple and elegant solution to numerous economic and resource coordination activities. But, that was already known— this is the second (some would say third) generation of an existing system that has been proven in multiple real-life case studies.

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I first discovered the ValueFlows project while searching for movements aiming to replace the current world economy with more sustainable and humane ways of organising. With apps like Buycott having found traction and new blockchain-based platforms like OriginTrail gathering momentum, the rise in consumer demand for transparent and trustworthy information on the products and services we buy seems set to skyrocket in the near future.

But consumer-curated platforms like Buycott & Good On You and even the next generation of blockchain-enabled supply chain tracking systems only go so deep. We need more than just guesses from third-parties or even information that lets us see inside the products we buy— we need information to show us what's going on externally, too. That includes the health and wellbeing of those involved in the production process as well as their communities; but much more critically it also includes the negative effects and impacts our production system has on the natural environment. And we need these capabilities delivered in a way that allows organisations to experiment with and own their own systems; not as part of a one-size-fits all global solution.

I think this recent interview with my former colleague and collaborator Thomas Miller is the clearest and simplest I've ever been able to communicate the purpose of 'open value networks', the promise of Holochain and ValueFlows; and why I believe methods like this are the most likely means of salvation for our species. (more)

(A report from the first Holochain intensive / unofficial ValueFlows festival.)

Last weekend the first ever Holochain intensive was held on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. You'd be forgiven for wondering why that location was chosen - we don't usually get much attention from the tech industry down here compared to places like California - but for whatever reason there's a significant number of Aussies interested and involved in the Holochain ecosystem. Basically it happened here because enough of us came together to make it happen.

I'm dubbing it the "unofficial ValueFlows festival" because REA accounting was particularly dominant over the weekend, front and center in a lot of sessions and the thing that most people there seemed to be focused on. As the resident "expert" I wasn't really prepared for how many of the presentations and workshops I would be facilitating or how many conversations I would be having about it. This is largely due to Holochain's founder Art having been turned on to REA by Bob and Lynn of Mikorizal and championing those concepts to groups interested in building on the platform. (more)