Search for NFTs of Supply Chain Assets

The vast majority (90+%) of the world's international trade of physical goods is shipped via intermodal shipping containers. However, the ships, rail and trucks that transport these containers are fractured across the companies and each have a small piece of the supply chain, and it is currently impossible to track a container from its origination point to its destination.

Before this hackathon, we had created an Android app that lets anyone capture geotagged pictures of shipping containers and mint Proof of Location (PoL) NFTs. These NFTs represent location records on the blockchain, as well as a claim to the stream of future profits when a buyer purchases location data from the blockchain-powered location data marketplace we are creating.

During Eth Global September 2022, we have built out the initial version of the “demand” side of the marketplace, where end users can search for container location records. This required a few updates to our infrastructure:

Our custom validators, which take the user-submitted photos of shipping containers, have been updated to use Tableland to cache, lookup and serve location data embedded with each NFT as it is minted. We have built https://explorer.traxa.io to visualize the data embedded in Tableland, with a search interface and map visualization

This lets us present a complete service offering for consumers of shipping data (shippers, carriers, seaports, 3PLs, governments, retailers, etc) that is completely built on the blockchain!

There are three major components to the system: User-facing android app that uses the camera to capture pictures of shipping containers Backend-service that takes the images, uses AI to extract the shipping container information and validate it, mints the Proof-of-Location NFT, and indexes the data for later retrieval Website that can display container information that displays Proof-of-Location NFTs and enables users to search for the whereabouts of a particular container.

Prior to EthGlobal, we had completed 1) and a proof of concept version of 2). During this EthGlobal hackathon, we worked on improving component 2) and creating component 3). By improving the backend service and creating the end-user facing website to query data, we have enabled the “demand” side of our data marketplace.

Backend Service: Prior to EthGlobal, we only had a backend service that only validated images, extracted container information and minted NFTs, using FFMpeg, OpenCV, Django and Express.. This worked well to demonstrate the supply side of the marketplace by allowing any user to capture images and validate shipping containers using our AI backend, however we needed to enable an end user to search for records. The Proof-of-Location NFTs are minted on Polygon using NFTStorage and Filecoin. For EthGlobal, we implemented a caching and query layer on top of our data on the blockchain, and we decided to use Tableland, which gives us a database and SQL interface. We insert data into Tableland after we validate the user’s image of a shipping container and mint the NFT.

Website: For EthGlobal, we created a React-based website (built using Chakra UI and Tailwind), hosted at https://explorer.traxa.io, to visualize Proof-of-Location NFTs and enable users to search for a particular container by ID. This would be helpful to shippers and other supply chain participants who are trying to track container locations with an easy to use search and visualization interface.