Jessi Baker, founder of blockchain technology platform Provenance, envisions a future where all physical products have digital histories, allowing people to trace and verify products’ origins, attributes and ownership. Is it time for a new dawn of transparency in retail?
It was when Jessi Baker (pictured above) was studying for her PhD in computer science that she realised her passion project was becoming too important to ignore. She put her PhD on hold and, armed with zeal for digital disruption, focused her attention full time on Provenance.
The software platform is a means to help people find out where products are sourced from, and how ethically and sustainably. It is designed to improve the transparency of supply chains and, at the same time, promote brands that commit to ethical sourcing, fair working conditions, quality and sustainability.
At the heart of Provenance is blockchain technology, which is best known for powering the paperless, bankless and stateless currency Bitcoin. Blockchain is a means of recording and storing enormous amounts of transactional data. The data, which is unique and cannot be tampered with, can include contracts, receipts, and supplier spreadsheets. Provenance data can be linked to any physical product, from coffee beans to fish, through labelling, smart tags and embeds for websites or apps.
“Provenance encourages brands to volunteer data about their supply chain,” explains Baker. “We ask them to prove that data, track it, and they must provide links back to proven materials. That way, we can verify an ethical provenance. We’re not a WikiLeaks-style organisation, digging for the bad. We want to showcase the businesses that are really trying to be ethical.”
In 2016 Provenance completed a six-month trial tracking tuna fish caught ethically in Indonesia. Fishermen sent text messages detailing their catches that were added to the Provenance blockchain, effectively attaching a…
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