HireGo Ltd a UK based tech company working in partnership with San Francisco based Origin Protocol is building the world’s first peer to peer car hire and car sharing platform built on Blockchain technology. By leveraging the Blockchain and IoT technology HireGo is accelerating the transition to decentralised car hire and car sharing which is the future of car ownership.
Traditional car ownership is declining as more people than ever are choosing to hire a car from private individuals or to car share. This trend is set to continue rising due to factors such as government regulation, demographic changes and cost.
In a rapidly-decentralising world there is a strong motivation to upset incumbent, centralised services and to create user-oriented alternatives.
By leveraging the blockchain to create a trustless, decentralised rental platform, HireGo aims to overcome the shortcomings of existing solutions such as;
High transaction fees; existing centralised platforms charge up to 35%Centralised ownership and ‘pooling’ of data becomes target for data theftMonopolisation of user data and reviews
The main goal is to speed up the transition to decentralised car hire and car sharing whilst enabling a seamless user experience.
Benefits of HireGo
As the first ever decentralized platform for private car rental, HireGo is setting new standards for usability in the industry by providing the following benefits;CredibilityBy implementing the blockchain technology, HireGo provides a secure and trustworthy platform for users by ensuring the transparency and credibility of all transactions performed on the platform. The blockchain technology offers a factual report on all users by recording all verified entries — transactions, reviews and comments into its database.Low feesMost existing car rentals charge as high as 35% as transactional fees for every rental. HireGo provides an affordable platform by charging low fees to the users which are channelled back into the system for maintaining the platform.Smart contractsHireGo utilises a technology based on the Ethereum blockchain known as the smart contracts protocol. This protocol works by eliminating the role of the middlemen in the car hiring process by promoting direct peer to peer interaction between the lessor and the lessee.
In addition to a number of frameworks that Hyperledger has already created for users, Hyperledger has also created three modules that currently support the Fabric framework.
First off, what is a module? According to definition at Techopedia, a module is “a software component or part of a program that contains one or more routines.” The definition goes on to explain that modules are important because they “make a programmer’s job easy by allowing the programmer to focus on only one area of the functionality of the software application” because another area, the block of code that establishes the routine, is already complete.
In other words, if you’re building a house you don’t also have to build the tools to build the house too. You can buy or borrow the hammers, the plumbing, the electric cables you need and use them to perform the routine tasks they are capable of to build your unique house. Likewise in coding, when creating a new application you can use established modules — your hammers, plumbing, and electric cables — to help you build your applications and write your programs.
To this end, Hyperledger has created three modules: Cello, Explorer, and Composer. As the Hyperledger edX course notes, “The Hyperledger modules…are auxiliary softwares used for things like deploying and maintaining blockchains, examining the data on the ledgers, as well as tools to design, prototype, and extend blockchain networks.” That’s a good, broad overview.
Now let’s take a closer look at each of these modules beginning with Cello.
What is the Cello module?
If you are a small business or , you probably do not have the resources to hire a blockchain developer. This is where Cello comes in. Initially contributed to by IBM with sponsors from , , and , Cello provides Blockchain-as-a-Service. This means users do not have to struggle with creating, managing, and terminating blockchains. Cello provides those services.
In addition, Cello provides its users with a dashboard so they can search the blockchain for data, create blockchains, and manage them. Going a step further, if you believe your business is going to need a group of distributed ledger networks, Cello can meet that need as well through its dashboard. Where are these blockchains kept? In a cloud designated by Cello which most likely means by IBM.
As of this writing, Cello is not live: It is still in incubation.
What is the Explorer module?
is a tool for “visualizing blockchain operations.” In other words, Explorer gives a face to the blockchain, the information on it, and how the blockchain is working. Without a tool like Explorer it is difficult to see each block, to query information that is on a block, or to see other key data about your blockchain. It is a blockchain dashboard.
But wait, didn’t you just say that Cello provides a blockchain dashboard? Good catch. I did: Cello uses a to leverage the Explorer dashboard. So the dashboard you see in Cello comes from Explorer.
To quote the people at Hyperledger, Explorer is “[d]esigned to …view, invoke, deploy, or query:
BlocksTransactions and associated dataNetwork information (name, status, list of nodes)Smart contracts (chain codes and transaction families)Other relevant information stored in the ledger.”
Hyperledger Explorer includes such key components as a , a web user interface (UI), , a database, a security repository, and a blockchain implementation.
The difference between having a tool like Explorer and not is akin to looking at a box score or a player’s playing card versus seeing the player play in person. With a box score or playing card you can clearly see what the player did that day or year which is what the Explorer dashboard can tell you about what’s on your blockchain. Seeing a player play well once and thinking, “Boy, that guy can play!” is like selectively remembering there’s a lot of good stuff on your blockchain, but not remembering everything clearly.
Taken a step further, not only can Explorer help you draw better conclusions and made better decisions based on data, but now everyone on your team has access to the same playing card (ie, the same data) as they can all access the data through Explorer on their individual computers.
Contributed to by , , and , Explorer is not live as of this writing: It is still in incubation.
What is the Composer module?
If the ready-made Cello – the Blockchain-as-a-Service module discussed above — is too off-the-shelf for you and coding out your own blockchain is too difficult or expensive, the Composer module may be the way to go. provides a suite of tools that:
Model your business blockchain networkGenerate REST APIs for interacting with your blockchain networkGenerate a skeleton Angular application.
Built in Javascript, Hyperledger Composer has “created a modelling language that allows you to define the assets, participants, and transactions that make up your business network using business vocabulary.” At the moment, one can only model a business blockchain network through Composer, not through Cello, but integration with Composer for Cello is under consideration, if not under development.
According to the edX course, Hyperledger Composer’s benefits are:
Faster creation of blockchain applications, eliminating the massive effort required to build blockchain applications from scratch;Reduced risk with well-tested, efficient design that aligns understanding across business and technical analysts; andGreater flexibility as the higher-level abstractions make it far simpler to iterate.
a Chinese company that focuses on verifying smart contracts on the blockchain, and contributed to the Composer project.
At the time of this writing, Composer is still in incubation.
Hyperledger Modules’ Big Picture
What’s important to note here is that not only are all three modules are still in incubation, but of the multiple frameworks they only look to work with the Hyperledger Fabric framework. In the future, the three modules may work with multiple or all of the frameworks.
It’s worth repeating that it is early days not just with blockchain technology, but Hyperledger blockchain technology as well. Hopefully, both will continue to iterate to become more efficient and to address more of its users’ issues as it learns over time what works and what does not.
With Q1 2018 drawing to a close, we wanted to do something different to mark this milestone. On Friday, 30 March 2018 at 3 PM EDT, we will have our regularly scheduled town hall on .
Joining us will be Airfox CTO . James will recap everything that happened since January and share a glimpse of what’s next for Airfox. After that, he will answer questions from the community posted to the .
We’re looking forward to sharing our progress with everyone who has supported us along the way. Thank you!
The Town Hall will happen on YouTube Live at
(Not sure when 3 PM is in your local time zone? Check it .)
