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Kambria has successfully organized the Mine Clearing Robot DAO (MCRD) - Info Seminar Session on November 4th, 2022.

Aside from sharing more information about this initiative and our partnership invitations, Kambria would like to take this opportunity to raise public awareness about mine action through heartfelt sharing between supporters about their own stories. The goal of utilizing technological advancement especially robotics technology in mine detection and clearance activities is to replace traditional manual methods in order to reduce risks and damage to humans and animals. Kambria hopes for a good initiative and attempts to contribute to the journey of ending the landmine scourge once and for all. We are really thankful for all the people that we are accompanying on this meaningful journey!

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Kambria Introduction:

Ms. Lien Cao, CEO of Kambria, kicked off the Info Session by sharing the overview of Kambria, Kambria DAOs, and the Mine Clearing Robot DAO

Kambria DAOs is a new way of building community by co-owning, co-developing, and co-commercializing Technology solutions. Kambria is going to launch the 2 first DAOs which are Pet Care Robot DAO (PCRD) and Mine Clearing Robot DAO (MCRD).

In this section, Ms. Lien shared more details about MCRD.

  • Before introducing Mine Clearing Robot DAO, she shared that the unforgettable beginning of MCRD was the Meeting of the Hearts with Audacity.

  • She highlighted the influence of landmines as well as their invisible effects on people's lives, agricultural exploitation, and economic development during this session. However, the current approach to mine detection is still quite rudimentary; according to the presentation, some current methods use hand-held metal detectors and then proceed to destroy them by human force. In addition to the risk of affecting people, manual methods require more time to completely clean the bomb sites.

  • Therefore, we would love to contribute to the creation of a more comprehensive solution that can assist people in mine clearance actions. That is why Kambria launched the Mine Clearing Robot DAO.
  • The DAO has four main phases: 
    • Phase 1: Develop a Mine Clearing Robot Solution
    • Phase 2: Implement the solution
    • Phase 3: Create community movement with MCRD Gamification
    • Phase 4: Speed up the work via community 

There are a couple of different key partners that we would like to highlight:

  1. Dev Teams, especially the Developers who will propose the solution that they want to build. The proposal needs to include an introduction about the team's background and capabilities, the development plan, demonstration works, and a quotation. 
  2. Services Partners, especially people who are already in the chain, working in the industry, providing mine clearance of services. They have relevant experience or they are working directly with the mine actions such as mine detection. 
    • For this type of partner, we would love to have them participate in the early stages of the development phase to give out the needs of the miner perspective, who are working in the real environment, and share ideas function of Robot for Dev Team.
    • Later on, once the product is finalized, they can help with the implementation of their services to these robots.
  3. Fund Contributors, especially people who come together to invest in these technology innovation solutions. In this part, Ms. Lien pointed out some highlighted financial information about the Mine Clearance in the Global Military Robot market and the allocation of DAO Funds and Revenue as per the Kambria DAO model.
  4. Community Partners, people who are spreading the good works about DAO solutions. They can support testing solutions at an early stage to give feedback to make sure that our technology gets into the right hands, providing the right services to the mine actions.

Ms. Lien concluded the presentation by informing the community about the next activities of Mine Clearing Robot DAO.

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Guest Talks:

Kambria would love to share highlights of meaningful stories and journeys from our beloved guests’ sharing:

Mr. Omar Mohamed - “Our journey for a mine-free world”

The first sharingOur journey for a mine-free world” is from Mr. Omar Mohamed from MineSweepers Organizing Committee - Towards a Landmine-free World.

In this session, we will hear from Mr. Omar Mohamed, the Robotics Program Manager at Delta Square International LLC, an Innovation Enablement Platform that primarily ignites innovation in new and emerging technologies through capacity building, pre-incubation programs, and competitions, with the goal of breaking down barriers between people and technology. In addition to leading the Underwater Robotics Challenges in the North Africa region, he is the Executive Manager of Minesweepers International Competition, the first outdoor robotics competition aimed at raising public awareness of the seriousness of landmines.

  • He started by outlining the motivation for the Minesweeper Competition.
  • He provided additional information about the statistics on the effects of landmines, including 61 countries affected by anti-personnel mines; there are 2000 types of mines and 650 AP mines; the cost of removing a mine is around 300-1000$; 46% of victims by landmines are children; every 5000 mines removed we have one deminer and two injured are killed. 

  • In the next part, Mr. Omar shared about Minesweepers: Towards a Landmine-free World, the first international robotics competition on humanitarian demining established in 2012 that aims at raising public awareness of the seriousness of landmines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs).
  • The ultimate goal of the Minesweepers competition is applying robotics technology to solve landmines problems, which matches with the new strategic mission of IEEE, “…to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity”.

  • He shared the 6 SDGs goals that Minesweepers aspire to Good Health and well-being; Quality education; Sustainable cities and communities; Life on the land; Peace, justice, and strong institution; and partnerships for the goals.
  • They organize a competition to encourage the teams in learning and develop mine detection techniques with robotics technology through the competition, which also presents a chance to spread awareness of mine actions.
  • Up to now, the Minesweepers competition has been held in 15 countries with 500 robot solutions from 1500 participants from more than 70 universities all over the world. 

  • In the last session, he highlighted some outstanding solutions from the competitions that have been held in recapping videos.
  • He also provided additional details regarding the 2023 season, which will take place in Alamein Robotics Championship (ARC).

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Mr. Tuan Nguyen - “1000 years to clear all landmines, what can we do to heal the earth faster?”

The 2nd sharing was from Mr. Tuan Nguyen, who represents the young generation aspect to share the effect of mine actions, with the topic “1000 years to clear all landmines, what can we do to heal the earth faster?”. 

In this session, we will hear the sharing from Mr. Tuan Nguyen with the topic “1000 years to clear all landmines, what can we do to heal the earth faster?”

  • He began by saying, "A great change comes from the first small actions." Mr. Tuan briefly discussed why we need to act before talking about actions that can bring about new changes.
    • He pointed out that landmines are a serious problem because they can kill a person instantly and when they explode, they also destroy nearby objects like trees and animals.
    • Additionally, he provides some statistics on the effect on people's lives.
    • It will take a lot of resources to remove all of the landmines.
    • Besides that, it can cause a lot of danger to humans at any time with the presence of many mines left deep underground all around the world.
    • Another reason is that landmines hinder a country's economic development. Mine production can be as low as $3-30 per mine, but demining can cost up to $300-1000 per mine removed. Afghanistan and Cambodia, both of which have a lot of landmines, believe that if landmines were moved, they could double their agricultural production.

  • Mr. Tuan said in the next part "So how can we solve these problems?".
    • He shared that more personal contributions will create changes as well as real impacts, similar to the Ripple Effect, where one small change can have an enormous impact.
    • He also shared three methods for dealing with the problems caused by landmines: technology, awareness and fundraising, and community.
      • In terms of technology, he suggested that we can develop technological solutions to assist people in detecting and destroying bombs, with the solution combining technologies such as IoT, Drones, Robotics, AI, and so on to create a comprehensive solution.
      • The second point he made was about raising awareness and funding for mine remediation efforts. He stated that currently, a few percent of the world knows about mine problems and if we do not know what the problem is, we will not know how to solve it. He also stated that resources for mine actions are limited, particularly in developing countries.
      • At the final point, he outlined growing the community to work together to develop and take action to address the effects of landmines. Mr. Tuan has also shared that when working with the Kambria Community, for him, he has chances to connect with like-minded people. He loves to connect with people who have the same perspectives and believe in what he believes, and he sees that Kambria really cares about the same things regarding the Earth, the lives, and the freedom of people and animals. Moreover, he believes that belonging to the right community is significant for self-development and problem-solving.      

He concluded his presentation with his opening sentence: "Great changes come from small actions" and "People who help bring about good chances change themselves for the better."

***

Ms. Shuen - “Combining robotics and gamification to a demining robot - A problem statement”

The last sharing was from Ms. Shuen for the topic “Combining robotics and gamification to a demining robot - A problem statement”. 

Ms. Shuen was also a project lead of DeMineCraft projects, applying digital twinning technologies to create safe and comfortable workplaces for individuals. 

  • She started her presentation with some information about DemineCraft Project Audacity.
  • Following that, she stated, "Not all jobs were created equal." Some jobs are not much more peculiar and high-risk, but that does not necessarily translate to an appropriate payment in terms of justification for the risks that people must face.
  • As a result, she emphasized that there is an opportunity for us to use technology such as AI or robotics to prevent great work and performance from these areas.

  • In the following section, she discussed some of the current Robotics and AI competitions, which tend to create solutions that replace humans rather than solutions that accompany humans and help humans to limit risks and dangers in potentially hazardous environments.
  • As a result, they wanted to create a solution that could support Mine Clearing activities in order to give people more time freedom and a more enjoyable workplace for everyone by utilizing robotics and AI.

  • She introduced DeMineCraft, an open innovation ecosystem based on digital twin games with real-world impact.
  • Imagine someone could play a game, and control a robot, and actually, that dangerous phenomenon worked for you, back then, we enjoyed the game. It is built on the principles of peace, wellness, and environmental regeneration.
  • She also shared some observations and gaps when implementing the project. She found that several projects and research can be commercialized, for the R&D in Robotics and AI cost and longtime to research or training model, and data with AI. 

  • In the final section, Shuen discussed the project opportunities and how she conceptualized the project with Growing Gaming Economy and Sharing Economy.
  • This could also be a new type of game introduced to users.
  • Furthermore, this is an opportunity to broaden contributions from everyone, as anyone can contribute to a portion of robot development projects.
  • She also demonstrated the robot's use as an assistive device with a prototype. The researcher can gather capital, data, or time through the game to find the development and research of the robot. In return, the player can use the robot to finish their work and earn money for the mines they have removed.

***

Heartfelt Sharing:

1. Have you ever joined a mine action?

Have you ever joined a mine action?” started the Heartfelt Sharing section with the sharing from Ms. Shuen.

  • Although she hasn't joined any mine clearing action, the participation in Audacity projects is close to the mine actions.
  • Besides that, Ms. Shuen also joined a mining event in 2019 when she was in college.
  • She shared that she was inspired by the potential impacts and especially by how robots can be utilized and can help to create impacts. 

2. Do you know anyone who has been through a war?

Mr. Tuan’s grandmother has a big scar because of a bomb explosion. He shares that the lucky thing here is his grandmother still can walk and do things.

  • Mr. Tuan shares a story that he has read in the newspaper which is about a boy who lost his hand because of a bomb explosion. That boy played by a stream and picked a small piece of that bomb and it exploded. Mr. Tuan shares sympathy because he cannot imagine what without hands or legs, how life will become; particularly when he links it to his job involving designing.
  • Bombs, mines, or explosive things are still there. They spread fear and kill people’s freedom who are living in those areas. Besides that, the effects from them can last for years.       

3. Are there any landmine areas in your home country?

Mr. Tuan keeps sharing with us his perspectives on this question.

  • In Vietnam, there are a lot of provinces that still have landmines. Vietnam has 64 provinces, but almost 63 provinces are “polluted” by landmines.
  • People in those provinces decide to leave because when they grow up. They have chances to move to big cities; and also because they cannot earn a living on a land with mines.
  • Vietnam is facing a big problem with landmines.
  • The world right now also has countries that are facing that problem, and Cambodia is one example.
  • From that, he believes that we also need to raise awareness because lots of people don't know the problem’s existence.   

4. If we organize some community activities to raise public awareness, which activity do you think we should do?

For this question, Mr. Omar shares that raising public awareness for people, especially those who are interested in robotics and AI, will help us to find the solutions to the problem.

  • We can build the ecosystem through competitions and be able to create robots that can support us to solve problems from mines. Moreover, through these activities, people can have more information.
  • At the same time, Mr. Omar also shares about working with humanitarian organizations as we can show them examples of the areas or how to remove the landmines. From that, we can share with each other the solutions and build a bigger community.

5. If you have a mine-clearing robot, how do you want it to help you?

  • Time and effort will go along with the journey to build up ideas and create a mine-clearing robot.
  • From Mr. Omar’s point of view, he would love to make sure that his way is safe, also via the robot solutions or about the explosion concern.

  • Besides that, it is so nice when Ms. Shuen also shares a touching view that if she had a mine-clearing robot, she would donate it to people who are working on it with the hope that the robot can help to save lives

***  

Q&A and Next Milestones

Q&A:

Kambria also would like to share a small section for Q&A and our next milestones:

Via our Registration Forms, we noted 2 key questions and had the support to share the answers from Ms. Lien.

The 1st question is from Hussaini Ali: "What does it really mean and how will it help the community, as an individual, what may I go to contribute and how do I achieve it?" with the sharing: "I just like to be a part of these projects."

  • Via this project, the Kambria community can help raise public awareness about mine actions and can contribute to solving this problem with technology capacity. And as we shared in the Introduction, you can contribute as a member of a Developer team, a Service partner, a Community partner, or a Fund contributor. Everyone can be a part of this.
  • For now, you all are welcome to join our Discord community to stay updated about our upcoming activities. At the moment, Kambria is calling for Developer teams to submit proposals.

The 2nd question comes from Adamu Mohammed from an Organization involving General merchandise import and export: "How can we cope with technological advancement and achieve goals and objectives?". "To make the world a safer place by understanding and mitigating the mines" is also a meaningful sharing that Kambria has received from him.

  • In order to cope with technological advancement and achieve goals, our approach is to partner with experienced Dev Teams and Experts. We are calling for Robotics Dev Teams around the world to submit their proposals and participate in solution development. 
  • We will organize a session for Dev Teams to present their proposals, and invite the Community and Experts to evaluate as well as share suggestions so that we can learn from the wisdom of the collective.
  • Moreover, your experiences in import and export will be valuable to us in the implementation phase. Thank you for sharing the same dream with us "to make the world a safer place by understanding and mitigating the mines" and looking forward to our collaborations in the future!

Next milestones:

1. For Mine Clearing Robot DAO:                  

  • Feb 10: Dev Team Proposal Submission.
  • Mar 24: Online Mine Clearing DAO Launch Event: 
    • Dev Teams present Proposals - Q&A from Community and Experts
    • Kickstart the fundraising on XDAO - How to join

2. For Pet Care Robot DAO:

  • Jan 27: Dev Team Proposal Submission
  • Feb 24: Online DAO Launch Event

Join us in Kambria's Innovative DAO Initiatives in Mine Clearing: Pioneering Future Technology and Robotics Advancements for Safer Mine Action. Together, we can create a safer world for all.

Author

Kambria is the first decentralized open innovation platform for Deep Tech (AI, Robotics, Blockchain, VR/AR…). Using our platform, anyone can collaborate in researching, developing and commercializing innovative ideas and get rewarded fairly for their contributions. Through partnerships with government agencies, top universities and leading companies, Kambria is dedicated to building a sustainable open innovation ecosystem to change the way we innovate and to accelerate advanced technology development and industry adoption. Together, let’s shape the future of technology where technology is open and contributes more to society.