What was Block Tank LA and who could apply?

Block Tank LA was a public-private partnership opportunity for blockchain companies that could solve the following issues at scale.

Selected companies pitched their solutions on the main stage at CIS on October 15 in front of a celebrity investor panel including billionaire investor Tim Draper.

Categories:

1. Environmental Sustainability

Creative uses of blockchain to improve the quality of human life while living within the capacity of our natural Los Angeles ecosystem. This could include natural/water resource management, ways to improve the way resources were managed, providing the public the opportunity to make more educated or environmentally conscious decisions, water, and natural energy management through smart contracts, and “carbon asset” management via a blockchain solution.

2. Online Voting Platform

Providing an online, secure voting platform for City of Los Angeles Neighborhood Council elections. This could include individualized, secure blockchain identity, online voting mechanisms that ensured only one vote per resident, and privacy capabilities that did not unnecessarily disclose personally identifiable information or political preferences.

3. Secure Resident IDs

Creative use of blockchain to develop an individualized secure record of a Los Angeles resident that could be accessed and used for government records. Identity was often defined by physical possession of a hardcopy document that could be lost, falsely replicated, and/or altered, and whose validation often included a long and tedious presentation of yet other hardcopy documents. The proposal could include an individual’s virtual identification coupled with a biometric trigger to create an unambiguous and private identification system.

Incentives for Pitching Companies

  1. The LA Mayor’s Office of Budget & Innovation (MOBI) and Information Technology Agency pledged to the winner a $25,000 pilot project with the City of L.A.
  2. Goren Holm Ventures pledged to invest up to $25,000 or more in the winning project and introduction to the Draper Venture Network of investors.