482.solutions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am CEO at Blockchain Association of Ukraine. BAU unites blockchain industry specialists whose cooperation has started in 2014. BAU is a non-profit organization that actively promotes the integration of blockchain technology into the economy of Ukraine

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions?

Representatives of 482.solutions were involved for such UAB initiatives as: “Project of the Ukrainian Crypto Valley” , White Pepper on the use of blockchain in EGOV, recommendations to the Ukrainian law on crypto assets.

And also for a huge number of educational activities held under the auspices of the BAU. Also, with the direct assistance of 482.solutions and the Ukrainian Embassy in Kenya, a partnership was concluded with the Blockchain association of Kenya.

What were your goals for this project?

Create a training course for blockchain developers.

SOLUTION

How did you select 482.solutions?

482.solutions has been operating in the blockchain technology market for more than four years. This is one of the leaders in this industry in Ukraine. It is also known abroad, in particular in Singapore, where they also have an office.

Describe the project in detail.

The results of cooperation with 482.solutions representatives were clear and comprehensive documentation on the projects in which they participated. Also, 482.solutions was developed, produced and installed in the BAU office demonstration stand (named “Prometheus”), clearly demonstrating the possibilities of using blockchain in the product supply chain.

What was the team composition?

From 482.solutions side we contacted with CEO, CTO, Chief R&D, Strategic Partnership Manager and Team Lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have always been satisfied with the results of cooperation with 482.solutions and could safely recommend them to both business representatives and representatives of the public sector.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

I was totally satisfied with how our and their teams interacted

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I was always amazed at their enthusiastic about Blockchain Technology and, at the same time, a systematic approach in the development.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There are always areas for improvement for all people. If talk about 482.solutions - I guess they need to scale their current level of achievements. And I wish all the best for them ))

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Dowell. We develop e-commerce, marketplace, and CRM solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 482.solutions?

They developed a part of our B2B marketplace.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

482.solutions developed a blockchain smart contracts functionality for us. It generates digital contracts between customers and sellers on our platform. It’s based on the ERC-20 Ethereum protocol.

What is the team composition?

I worked with their main account manager and some tech people.

How did you come to work with 482.solutions?

We’re based in the same city in Ukraine and met each other at a summit 3–5 years ago. We kept in touch after that. They asked us to do an e-commerce project for them, and we got a client request for blockchain development. I knew that they are one of the best blockchain developers in Ukraine.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was between $50,0000–$120,000. Our client paid 482.solutions directly, so I’m not certain.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran between March–June 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We received perfect feedback from the customer, and I believe they’ve launched the project. We’ll launch the first event on the platform next month. Our QA department tested 482.solutions’ work and had no concerns.

How did 482.solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They gave us clear and fast answers. We communicated through Jira, phone calls, Google Meet, and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There are few specialists in the world that could provide the same kind of work within the same timeframe and price. We interviewed different blockchain developers, and I was impressed by the extremely short timeframe in which 482.solutions delivered. They delivered early.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I’ve recommended them multiple times to our clients. My only advice is to describe your requirements clearly.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

IT2School is a public organization and a community of IT volunteers in Odessa, who united with one goal: to share their knowledge and experience, thus creating an opportunity for creativity and self-expression of students through programming languages and other modern technologies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions, and what were your goals?

We hired 482.solutions to conduct training courses for our students on topics such as blockchain, internet of things, HTML/CSS. The aim was to obtain new relevant knowledge for our students from practicing experts and market leaders.

SOLUTION

How did you select 482.solutions and what were the deciding factors?

The IT industry in Ukraine is very developed, but its main players are quite familiar with each other. We often met with 482.solutions representatives at various conferences and meetups.

They have always been open to effective collaboration. After the first training event they held, it became clear that 482.solutions are really professionals in their field.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The volume of work carried out was quite large. A two-day workshop on Internet of Things and Blockchain was implemented, as well as an online course consisting of 10 lessons on HTML/CSS. We plan to continue training activities in the current academic year

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The head of the IoT department and several software engineers directly cooperated with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

As a result of cooperation, more than 20 students received basic knowledge in the field of Blockchain and Web Development. All the students presented their projects and received positive feedback from a mentor.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

All the tasks set by us were carried out accurately on time. It was convenient and comfortable to communicate with 482.solutions

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

All the participants were highly motivated and they demonstrated a lot of knowledge and skills, which they shared with the students.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

During this event, everything was done at the highest level. And we hope for further fruitful cooperation in various areas.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Global Marine City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 482.solutions?

We needed a company to help us create a custom online platform.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They created the platform from start to finish, doing development and design. It’s a complex maritime project that acts as a recruiting platform with many features and functionalities, including a feedback form for the users.

I presented my ideas to them and we worked collaboratively to come up with the solution requirements. They used JSON and Angular.

What is the team composition?

There were 6-7 people working on the team, including a project manager and a technical manager. I interacted with Ivan (CFO), Roman (CEO), and a third resource.

How did you come to work with 482.solutions?

They were experienced in maritime projects and showed interest in my ideas. I felt they would be a good partner to help me build those ideas into reality.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around January 2015, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They did everything I asked of them and created the platform in its entirety. I have learned a lot from them that I didn’t know about development when we started. I’m very happy with the collaboration.

How did 482.solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We use software for scheduling milestones. We meet 2-3 times each week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve never worked with another team that said yes to every requested task and then completed them. I trust them and have made them my partner in this. They are skilled in multiple technologies.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They have a good style and like to work in multiple technologies that are on the market.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Association of Industrial Automation of Ukraine unites almost 100 local innovators of Industry 4.0. I' m CEO of the Association and act also as the main analyst. See more info http://land4developers.com/

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions, and what were your goals?

482.solutions have been active members of the Association of Industrial Automation of Ukraine for 2 years. The main value for us is the projects that are created by the members of the Association. 482.solutions have always taken a proactive stance and organized project activities themselves with other members. Also, they have always supported the internal Association of Industrial Automation of Ukraine activities, for example, they are members of our two annual Landscapes.

SOLUTION

How did you select 482.solutions and what were the deciding factors?

Mainly, we monitors progress of local innovators of Industry 4.0 through 3 indicators:

1. nb and quality of use-cases,
2. customer confirmation,
3. public activity and industry leadership. 482.Solutions has best performance in all 3 area in blockchain segment.

They are only company in Ukraine porposed dedicated and proved blockchain solutions in Energy, Logistic and infrastructure.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We have collaborated with 482.solutions on the level of marketing activities. Representatives from 482.solutions have often served as expert speakers at our events. I'm reliably aware of their joint energy projects with a company that is the leader of the Ukrainian energy market as well as an aerospace university.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4 people: CEO, Business developement manager, Communication manager, Marketing director

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

482.solutions in addition to commercial activities as a service company have their own R&D department and are developing their own product “Electrodo” -  a platform for managing energy assets. As far as I know, their collaborations with other clients are associated with the implementation of this particular product.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Guys are very proactive, accurate, polite and customer-oriented.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I'm impressed by their proactivity and orientation on latest industry trends.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Difficult to say

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a council member at the NEM.io Foundation, a nonprofit headquartered in Singapore. We promote and help the development of NEM, which is a blockchain platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 482.solutions?

We’ve collaborated with them on various educational activities in Ukraine, such as lectures for university students, community blockchain meetups, and blockchain for business and government. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked on proofs of concept for an election commission and the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure. There were also a few projects on blockchain implementation for business, and consulting for startups. Additionally, we’ve launched a charity project with 482.solutions, called Crypto Heroes, where we used blockchain to track all payments.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 2–6 people from 482.solutions.

How did you come to work with 482.solutions?

I met them at BlockchainUA, which is the biggest conference in Ukraine for our field. We had several meetings after that and decided to work together.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve used 482.solutions as system integrators across different collaborations. We connect them with our clients, so we don’t pay them directly.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with 482.solutions in February or March 2018, and the most recent project we did with them ended around December 2019. We maintain friendly relations with them, but we haven’t had any projects since then.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I would definitely recommend 482.solutions for blockchain projects, and confirm their high standards on both technical and marketing areas, and their excellent quality of development. They’re highly skilled in the blockchain field.

They haven’t had a direct impact on our company, but they’ve been active in raising awareness of blockchain in Ukraine. They often feature case studies of projects we’ve developed together in their presentations.

How did 482.solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very open and friendly. They’re willing to collaborate, and they can provide a basic level of development for free.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very responsive and easy to communicate with. Nothing I’ve asked of them has gone ignored.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have anything to say in this respect.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I don’t have any specific advice on how to work with them, but I’d definitely recommend to at least reach out to them and find out how a collaboration might work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm lecturer of 'Basics of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies' at Faculty of Informatics, National University of 'Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions?

Software engineers from 482.solutions conducted 3 presentations and 2 seminars about Hyperledger Fabric and it's use cases for my students.

What were your goals for this project?

We consider good practice inviting guest lecturers from software development companies. Master classes delivered by industry professional motivate students to develop their skills on real use cases

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We meet at Blockchain conference, I looked at their projects, and actually they are the best in IoT/Blockchain development here in Ukraine

Describe the project in detail.

We discussed first scope of presentation material, resources required from faculty for demo (we decided to use Digital Ocean and I prepared student accounts), then lecture was conducted and master class followed it. As a result every student of my class understand what is Hyperledger Fabric and could build services on it.

What was the team composition?

From 482.solutions side 3 persons, including CTO, community manager and software engineer, from faculty I am.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

As we already conducted such events in 3 semesters, we together developing content of material. This year presentation was given using MS Teams because of COVID-19 lockdown, and it shows more efficiency than offline class. We also going to develop an individual practical assignments for next semester students. I'm also considering about delivery of new course, Permissioned blockchains, together with 482.solutions

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As we are located in different cities we use e-mail, messenger and Google Calendar for communication and scheduling, and MS Teams for screen content delivery and questions

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I appreciate their academic based approach for research and development

Are there any areas for improvement?

Yes, we'll split our project into several modules to increase efficiency and practical value

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO of the Energy Web Foundation. Energy Web (EW) is a global nonprofit organization accelerating a low-carbon, customer-centric electricity system by unleashing the potential of blockchain and other decentralized technologies. EW focuses on building core infrastructure and shared technology, speeding adoption of commercial solutions, and fostering a community of practice.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions?

The EW-DID library implementation confirms to the requirements specified in the DID Specification published by the W3C Credential Community Group. The aim of the library is to : provide an abstraction layer to manage and interact with DIDs and Verifiable Claims on Energy Web Chain enable EW Member organisation to adopt or/and implement different DID methods for more info see 

What were your goals for this project?

the library must be easy to use on the server and in the browser. It shall use cryptography in a smart way to enable secure and trustworthy claims management

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed the developers and decided to give it a try. After 2 successful 2 week sprints we decided to extend our collaboration. That is how we select all our vendors. It is easy and less costly than lengthy selection processes.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

DID Flow The following will describe the process of both Public and Private Claim generation and verification. Private claims involve ZKP to obfuscate the content of claim fields from third parties (verifiers). Detailed description of ZKP Protocol

Security considerations: The Schnorr identification protocol has been proven to satisfy the following properties, assuming that the verifier is honest and the discrete logarithm problem is intractable (Stinson, 2006).

1. Completeness - a prover who knows the discrete logarithm is always able to pass the verification challenge.
2. Soundness - an adversary who does not know the discrete logarithm has only a negligible probability (i.e., 2^(-t)) to pass the verification challenge.
3. Honest verifier zero-knowledge - a prover leaks no more than one bit of information to the honest verifier: whether the prover knows the discrete logarithm.

The Fiat-Shamir transformation is a standard technique to transform a three-pass interactive Zero-Knowledge Proof protocol (in which the verifier chooses a random challenge) to a non-interactive one, assuming that there exists a secure cryptographic hash function.

Since the hash function is publicly defined, the prover is able to compute the challenge by itself, hence making the protocol noninteractive. In this case, the hash function (more precisely, the random oracle in the security proof) implements an honest verifier, because it assigns a uniformly random challenge c to each commitment (g^v or G x [v]) sent by the prover.

This is exactly what an honest verifier would do. It is important to note that in Schnorr's identification scheme and its non-interactive variant, a secure random number generator is REQUIRED. In particular, bad randomness in v may reveal the secret discrete logarithm.

Basic Flow of the Protocol Let g be a generator of a cyclic group of prime-order q. L e t f b e t h e f i e l d v a l u e o f t h e c l a i m . The goal is to convert the field value to a keypair, whereby the obfuscated field value represents the private key (secret), and the public key can be shared with the verifier. To generate a keypair, Alice would take the field value f and concatenate with a random integer (salting). Salted value will be then hashed to a random integer a between 1 and q. The keypair is computed as follows: PKA = g = a mod q, SKA a PK can be published to the world.

To prove the verifier that the secret associated with the public key is known, the following n o n - i n t e r a c t i v e protocol is performed: A l i c e g e n e r a t e s a r a n d o m k i n t h e r a n g e 1 , … , q T h e v a l u e h = g m o d q i s c a l c u l a t e d . k T h e c h a l l e n g e c i s d e f i n e d a s f o l l o w s : c = H A S H ( g | | o t h e r P u b l i c D a t a ) k Value s = ac + k mod q, along with PK and is sent to the verifier.

Rhe last step of the protocol is verification. The verifier reconstructs the challenge c using publicly available information. The verifier trusts the prover, if the following holds: g s = P K * A c h m o d q g = * ac + k (g ) a c g mod q k g ac + k = g mod q ac + k Suggestion for Library Used SHA256 with secp256k1 elliptic curve can be used, as javascript libraries are readily available and t h o r o u g h l y t e s t e d .

For both the hashing algorithm and elliptic curve math sjcl (Stanford Javascript Crypto Library) can be used, as it implements both. References Stinson, D., "Cryptography: Theory and Practice", 3rd Edition, CRC, 2006. 

What was the team composition?

EWF Team members * Software architect * CTO 482 solutions team members * 2 senior full stack engineers

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

it allowed us to successfully complete another project which was depending on this functionality

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

project management was performed from EWF. It was easy and seamless to work with 482 staff as they are proficient in participating in online meetings. We are a decentralized, remote first organization which was a perfect fit

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their level of technical expertise and know-how was really beyond our expectations. They provided many solutions we would not have thought of. Namely the zero knowledge proof for the selective attributes disclosure on private claims

Are there any areas for improvement?

I found the collaboration to be great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of a company that helps online businesses promptly authenticate and identify customers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with 482.solutions?

We had an idea and needed a technical partner and blockchain expert to help build our products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed everything we needed from scratch on top of blockchain. They used an IBM Hyperledger Fabric model.

What is the team composition?

From the beginning, we worked with three of their team members including an IBM developer. By the end of the project, we were working with six people in total.

How did you come to work with 482.solutions?

We asked friends and other business leaders for recommendations. We then found reviews for 482.solutions online. They have a good reputation and are trustworthy.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in April 2018 and the project is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Although the project is still ongoing, I’ve been able to use the platform. They take a very detailed approach to every client and each project. Their team will take a task, and deliver a high-quality product no matter what. When we need help, they offer solid advice. Not only do they listen to what we want, they tell us how we could be better. They’ve finished all the tasks on time.

How did 482.solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We had meetings with them almost every week for the first three months of development. At later stages, we met about every two weeks. We generally communicate by phone, email, and Trello. When we ask them for advice or to make changes, we just need to call and ask. We also are able to talk to them before we make any payments.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re always very prepared. Before we started working with them, we had several meetings in which they brought a lot of materials, samples, case studies, and they always tell us what will be best for our business.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The price was a little high.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Take into account the time it takes to create proposals and prepare. It can be the difference between 200 and 300 hours and will help you calculate the cost and establish a reliable time table.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a co-founder and a CEO of a tech startup using proprietary technology to disrupt legacy distribution of design-driven consumer goods.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire 482.solutions, and what were your goals?

To develop custom-solution starting from scratch, combining blockchain technology and custom b2b marketplace platform.

SOLUTION

How did you select 482.solutions and what were the deciding factors?

The deciding factor was a combination of skills and deep knowledge in the two main technologies within the stack that we required. We were also very pleased with the way they conducted negotiations from the beginning.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The technical team has developed a custom-made platform MVP based on Magento 2 CMS and has integrated it with Ethereum Smart Contracts (Solidity) that reflects all transactions that are carried out on the platform.

As part of this work, 2 Ethereum Smart Contracts were developed by 482.solutions team: issuing a Smart Contract for proprietary token and IP Protection Smart Contract that stores the mandatory information about each transaction.

Used technology stack: Solidity, Ethereum, Web3, Infura, Metamask, Ganache

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

There were 5 people as a core team, including a project manager, 2 senior developers, a designer and a QA, plus some others from time to time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We have a successful MVP and about to go live in production.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Dedicated skillful project manager assigned to us was a key factor contributing to the project success.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The ability to find a workable solution under pressure.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Improvement in project time estimation, which was still way better comparing to many other teams we worked with before.