To fully develop and bring the offering to market, FreshTurf needed to team with a seasoned technology provider. “We chose IBM because they are a global leader in building blockchain on the cloud, with vast experience in blockchain projects around the world and across multiple industries. IBM also offered the most convenient way to test a blockchain network on the cloud,” says Lim. FreshTurf worked with the IBM Garage on the project, using the Design Thinking method to generate ideas, validate them, create minimum viable products (MVPs) and develop a plan. The Garage staff helped FreshTurf explore technology, create a strategy for delivery, build wireframes and develop architectures. Using the Garage approach, FreshTurf produced a technical framework within just two days. “During the Design Thinking workshop, we had access to technical expertise, consulting and guidance through working with the IBM Garage, which allowed us to quickly build our concept. The IBM Garage’s methods of Design Thinking, use of cloud and agile development practices served as the foundation of our startup,” says Jarryl Hong, Cofounder, FreshTurf. The end result of the groups’ efforts is a distributed ledger prototype built on the IBM Blockchain on the IBM Cloud platform, specifically designed to manage commercial transactions between merchants, logistics vendors, locker companies and consumers. Using IBM API Connect™ software, FreshTurf created application programming interfaces (APIs) that give logistics companies access to a marketplace of short-term locker storage to meet their needs. Using the solution, companies can reconcile the sometimes conflicting ideas of identity management and user privacy, and competing organizations can transact effectively on a common blockchain. With the blockchain’s private and permissioned shared ledger, companies can protect the privacy of transactions exchanged between different stakeholders. The blockchain also delivers a single source of truth with a tamper-resistant system of record. “We are working toward our vision of establishing a greater distribution point network as the basis to provide logistics companies with a competitive marketplace, in line with the macroeconomic shift toward a sharing economy,” says Lim.