Dimitra AMA Summary: May 18th, 2023
Last week our CEO, Jon Trask sat down with the QQ糖 community on Discord to talk through all things Dimitra! Here is the recap of the questions that were asked:
Could you please tell us a little bit about Dimitra Technology and yourself?
Hello everyone, thank you for having me here today. My name is Jon Trask and I am the CEO and Founder of Dimitra Incorporated. I’ve been working in blockchain since 2017 and I have had an extensive career building and developing enterprise software solutions focused on supply chain, identity, traceability, and I’ve held several C-level positions with some multinational corporations.
Dimitra is a blockchain based agricultural technology company and we provide elegant and useful technology to farmers around the world at a low cost. Think of Dimitra as the operating system for Ag-tech, and that the Dimitra token (DMTR — https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/dimitra) is what drives our ecosystem. We have a data driven approach at Dimitra to help: increase crop outputs, reduce expenses for farmers, and to help mitigate their risks.
I think I have to ask one of the most talked about topics nowadays, which is how you feel about the recent buzz about the meme hype. And as the CEO and founder of a real technology company that’s helping people all around the world, how do you view this amount of undeserved attention to meme coins?
Meme coins are a novel new area within the crypto industry and the interesting thing about crypto is that people are creating new use cases and value within crypto each day which is driving new innovation. At Dimitra, we are focussed on utility and solving real-world problems within agriculture for small farmers and providing utility with our technology stack and within our ecosystem which is powered by our utility token the DMTR.
What are you most excited about in 2023, and how has this year been so far for you and the Dimitra team?
In 2023 Dimitra is laser focused on expanding our capabilities at detecting and reporting on deforestation. The Dimitra Deforestation module uses satellite imagery to differentiate between trees, crops, forested areas, and clear-cut sections to do precisely that. Machine learning models analyze this data to understand what’s happening on the ground without ever touching the soil. To intelligently identify the deforested areas in a sea of green, the module uses AI to determine texture, color, reflectivity, and much more. This allows both farmers and traders to offer full transparency in their supply chain. Additionally, it allows them to prove with data-backed insights their compliance with deforestation regulations.
So far, three nations have already started using and testing the Dimitra Deforestation module and we’ve been training our Machine Learning with 500,000 square kilometers of forested land. Over time, we expect this to grow exponentially and to become many regions of many countries across the globe as it is a global problem and a global initiative that 141 nations have signed up via legislation to solve.
We’ve written the Dimitra Deforestation Certificate to the Polygon blockchain to ensure the lowest possible gas fees which also ensures the deforestation certificate is time stamped and dated which ensures immutability. If you’d like to read about the legislation here is a link for it:
https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/615721825/eu-deforestation-regulation-and-compliance
141 nations have signed a pact at COP to eliminate deforestation by 2030. The EU has mandated that goal that seven crops (coffee, timber, rubber, soy, palm oil and cocoa) are deforested free by 2030. Imagine all the companies that will require a certificate to be compliant and they could potentially be using our system. It’s a massive opportunity for us.
We are also expanding our capabilities to combine drone imagery analysis with our satellite analysis. Recently we ran a project in Papua New Guinea collecting drone data on corn being affected by Fall Armyworm (FAW). We have determined that we can detect early and minimize pesticide costs and losses for those that use our techniques. FAW decimates billions of dollars of crops annually, and we have a viable way to significantly reduce those losses all driven by AI and drones.
We have a major AI-based project in Brazil to mitigate fruit losses, particularly — citrus and mango. This will be applied globally to reduce disease-related losses which can wipe out citrus groves.
We are continuously building out the DMTR marketplace, and increasing awareness of the DMTR token across the world. In addition, we are adding projects to our Farmer Sponsorship Program, with the goal of getting more people to support the Dimitra Farmer Sponsorship Program (https://dimitra.io/dimitra-sponsorship-program-for-individuals/).
And, in time, add more key exchange partners.
Dimitra is also focused on both scaling and improving our five platforms, and adding more farmers, cooperatives, and nations to our list of customers (we have sixteen nations under contract). We’ve got a bright future ahead coupled and now its about execution in 2023–2024 and also growing our customer base and having people purchase our platforms with the DMTR token.
What are the key features about Dimitra that you would like to share with our community?
Great question! Dimitra’s platforms are built on blockchain technology and incorporate mobile technology, machine learning, IoT devices, satellite and drone imagery, genomics, and advanced farming research. We want to help farmers across the world improve their productivity with the power of information.
We know that the ecosystem token $DMTR can be traded on Kucoin, Gate, Bitmart, Bittrex International, and Uniswap. What is the role $DMTR playing in the whole ecosystem?
The token drives our ecosystem. DMTR is a utility token, and our hope is that it creates real-world value or utility for the farmers and all the facets within our ecosystem. That value is not just relegated to digital exchanges, and much of the value is wrapped up in the success of a related project.
Farmers can do things like pay for their licenses (Connected Farmer, Livestock Guru, Deforestation, Connected Coffee) with $DMTR tokens, and when our marketplace goes live, they’ll be able to buy things like sensors, coffee, and crops, and pay for their transactions with $DMTR tokens.
For example, one of our Cooperatives in Indonesia is called Solok Radjo, the cooperative leaders used tokens to purchase their Dimitra Connected Coffee licenses. Over time, they will continue to pay for their licenses using the DMTR token and if they want buy advanced features like additional AI machine learning reports they will have to pay with DMTR. Once our marketplace goes live they will also be able to transact in DMTR within the marketplace.
Dimitra’s market opportunity is massive as we are operating in one of the world’s largest untapped technology markets. I can’t think of many crypto projects that have real-world utility and have contracts with 16 nations as we do already.
What is the long-term sustainable value driver for the $DMTR token?
Sustainability is core to everything we do at Dimitra. When farmers receive notifications and advice from our platform during the growing seasons, it always has sustainability in mind. Therefore, when our customers purchase their licenses with the DMTR token sustainability is at the core. When farmers purchase deforestation certifications they prove that their farm complies with regulations. We are very focused on making the world a better place one farm at a time.
Can you please share a little bit more about the Dimitra team?
Absolutely and thank you for the question. The Dimitra team is so important and we wouldn’t be where we are without everyone and what they bring to the table. Dimitra is operating in over 70 countries and we have 140 team members. Our team is made up of the following: leadership, country sales partners, tech, operations, finance, and marketing.
Thank you so much for having me here today. We appreciate everyone coming for today’s AMA and asking so many great questions.