As a team, we've been increasingly concerned about the data privacy of users on the internet in 2022. There’s no doubt that the era of vast media consumption has resulted in a monopoly of large tech firms who hold a strong grasp over each and every single user input. When every action you make results in your data being taken and monetized to personalize ads, it’s clear to see the lack of security and protection this can create for unsuspecting everyday users.
That’s why we wanted to create an all-in-one platform to decentralize the world of advertising and truly give back digital data ownership to users. Moreover, we wanted to increase the transparency of what happens with this data, should the user opt-in to provide this info to advertisers. That’s where our project, Sonr rADar, comes in.
As the name suggests—Sonr rADar, integrated into the Sonr blockchain ecosystem, is a mobile application which aims to decentralize the advertising industry and offer a robust system for users to feel more empowered about their digital footprint. In addition to the security advantages and more meaningful advertisements, users can also monetarily benefit from their interactions with advertisers. We incentivize users by rewarding them with cryptocurrency tokens (such as SNR) for their time spent on ads, creating a win/win situation. Not only that, but it can send advertisers anonymous info and analytics about how successful their ads are, helping them to improve further.
Upon opening the app, users are met with a clean dashboard UI displaying their current token balance, as well as transfer history. In the top right corner, there exists a dropdown menu where the user can choose from various options. This includes the opportunity to enter and update their personal information that they would like to share with advertisers (for ad personalization), an ads dashboard where they can view all relevant ads, and a permissions section for them to opt in/out of where and how their data is being shared (e.g. third parties). Their information is then carefully stored using data schemas, buckets, and objects, which directly utilize Sonr’s proprietary blockchain technology to offer a fully transparent data management solution.
We built this application using the Flutter SDK (more specifically, motor_flutter), programming languages such as Dart & C++, and a suite of tools associated with Sonr; including the Speedway CLI! We also utilized a testing dataset of 500 user profiles (names, emails, phone numbers, locations) for the schema architecture.
Since our project leverages tools from an early-stage startup, some documentation was quite hard to find, so there were many instances when we were stuck during the backend implementation. Luckily, we were able to visit the Sonr sponsor booth and get valuable assistance with any troubleshooting—as they were very helpful. It was also largely our first time working with Flutter, Go, and a lot of the other components of blockchain and Sonr, so naturally there was a lot to process and overcome.
We're proud to have created a proof-of-concept prototype for our ambitious idea; working together as a team to overcome the many obstacles we faced along the way! We hope that this project will create a lasting impact in the advertising space.
How to work together as a team and delegate tasks, balance our time amongst in-person activities + working on our project, and create something exciting in only 36 hours! By working with feedback and workshops offered by the sponsor CEO and Chief of Staff, we got an insightful look into the eventful startup experience and what that journey may look like. It's hard to think of a better way to dive into the exciting opportunities of Blockchain!
The state of our project is only the beginning; we plan to further build out the individual pages on the application and eventually deploy it to the App Store! We also hope to receive guidance and mentorship from the Sonr team, so that we can utilize their products in the most effective way possible. As we gain more traction, more advertisers and users will join—making our app even better. It's a positive feedback loop that can one day allow us to even bring the decentralized advertisement platform into AI!