We speak to Civic Ledger CEO and Co-Founder, Katrina Donaghy, about how Civic Ledger’s expertise in blockchain technology and natural capital exchange development is empowering land managers and water users to lead transformation through decentralization and peer-to-peer exchange.
Tell us about your Civic Ledger
Civic Ledger is a multi-award-winning globally focused company building next-generation marketplaces with blockchain technology and smart contracts to create auditable ecosystems.
From our beginnings in late 2016, we understood the value proposition of blockchain to build markets of tomorrow to take accurate stock of shared public resources. Since delivering our first Proof of Concept in 2016, we have seen the technology mature, the global effort to agree on standards, and the shifting of digital transformation to the mainstream.
The common theme that links our solutions is that we break down data silos that often plague organisations enabling different organisations that may not trust each other access the same information seamlessly. The result is increased efficiency and reduction on costs to businesses and improving the customer experience through building confidence in the data and trust in the transaction.
In 2018, Civic Ledger was named as Australia’s Emerging Fintech Company of the Year and in 2019, announced as joint winners at the Blockchain “Blockies” Awards for best Government blockchain project of the year with IP Australia. In 2020, Civic Ledger was a Finalist at the Australian FinTech “Finnies” Award for “Excellence in Blockchain”. In June 2021, Civic Ledger was accepted into the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers 2021 Cohort. Technology Pioneers have been selected based on the community’s selection criteria, which includes innovation, impact and leadership as well as the company’s relevance with the World Economic Forum’s Platforms.
What inspired you to start Civic Ledger?
I spent most of my working life in government and not-for-profit positions and would wonder how to make decisions and transactions transparent where the person making a donation, for example, could track and trace where their donation went and verify that the transaction was completed in accordance with their intent. When blockchain technology found me, I started to think about how this technology would work in government, and I knew that I needed to do something with this technology.
What challenge is Civic Ledger addressing in the water sector?
Australia is the more arid inhabited country in the world and therefore our water resources are considered a scarce resource requiring regulation to manage competing priorities between urban, industry, agriculture, and environmental demands. Starting with agriculture water markets, our product, Water Ledger, solves two areas that plague water trading: confidence and control. It solves this challenge by providing a real-time water entitlements and allocation trading solution that appears like existing online share trading platforms. In addition, Water Ledger provides for transparency of real-time water prices and peer to peer trading of water without the requirement for intermediaries. Water trades can cope with the complex arrays of entitlement transfer rules, and these can be updated in real-time (e.g., to allow for access to an overland flow event). Water Ledger uses blockchain and smart contract technology to ensure automatic compliance with applicable business rules and legislative obligations, trading activity and compliance is transparent to all stakeholders in close to real-time giving control back to market participants as to how they interact with the water market. In addition to agriculture water markets, we are enhancing Water Ledger’s functionality for effective company reporting on material water impacts at value chain level whereby water data can be visible across the full value chain: upstream and downstream. We are undertaking this functionality enhancement exploring the critical minerals value chain in partnership with Everledger. Referring to the Water Accounting Framework that is aligned to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI 303-3), the CDP, and the CEO Water Mandate, we are helping the next economy disclose verified water data to share its water stewardship story.
What are the goals for Civic Ledger?
Our goals are always the same the day it was founded: to build the very best products by inspired and curious people for solving real problems experienced by our customers. Blockchain technology is not a plug and play, it is a very powerful tool to rethink governance and institutional instruments that inform how we create and share value, and importantly, how we value what we share.
What steps are you taking, as the CEO, to encourage gender diversity in your organisation?
Being a female CEO and Co-Founder does help as I am able to work closely with the team to ensure that we are holding ourselves accountable. Presently we have 50:50 gender representation and are also ethnically diverse with all but one of our people born outside of Australia. In the past, I founded the Australian chapter Women in Blockchain inspired by Thessy Mehrain from New York and hosted Brisbane Women in Blockchain Meetup every month for almost three years. We have Women in Blockchain meetups in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide. I was a past director with the Australian Digital Commerce Association (now Blockchain Australia) and for many years have spoken at conferences about the Blockchain Industry and how women of all aspects are making their own contribution.
Finally, what are your hopes for the future of women in technology?
Our past will shape the future. Women have been in technology from the beginning – we always have (Ada Lovelace). Technology is now so diverse and thinking that it is only developers who matter is very short-sighted. Technology is an enabler. Humans still need to be involved in its evolution – designers, storytellers, creatives, artists, philosophers, problem solvers, lawyers, academics, ethicists, teachers, entrepreneurs, accountants. As my favourite character from Halt and Catch Fire said, “Computers are not the thing; they are the thing that gets us to the thing.”
