Presence

Daveed Benjamin is an American technologist and children’s writer. But his most important identifier is Papa. Since BS and MS in Engineering at Stanford, he has had leadership roles in startups, nonprofits, and social enterprises in emergent fields. As a “Shift Shaper,” his work focuses on collective wisdom and altering systems of consciousness for positive impact. Daveed worked on decentralization in early 2000s focusing on energy, food, and water and on building local economies. In the early 2010’s, he co-founded and co-created an award-winning  purpose-driven, extended reality children’s property called Pacha’s Pajamas that features Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Cheech Marin. Now as founder and CEO of WisdomTech startup Bridgit.io, Daveed’s focus is decentralizing knowledge & building collective intelligence. Daveed is a Royal Society of the Arts Fellow, Active Dreaming teacher, SoulCollage® Facilitator, Green For All fellow, Founder Gym graduate, and a Warm Data Labs host.

The Internet is a social distancing technology that silos people and information. We propose to build a browser called Presence on the Mozilla Firefox codebase that creates a safe digital community over the web (in the annotation layer) and enables on-page presence and interactions. Presence elevates humanity by enabling humanity to think, learn and build knowledge together for the first time at scale, thereby affording anyone he opportunity to participate in solving the world's most difficult problems. Presence enables ethnic and affinity groups to form digital nations, and to surface their history, connect it to the present, and charter a course to a future that works for everyone. Given the historic marginalization of people in the African Diaspora and their lead in the call for racial equity, we will pilot Presence digital nations with black people, enabling them to be among the first to shift their relationship with information.  

Knowledge is power, and today's Internet amplifies information asymmetries. The problem is that today's Internet is a social distancing technology that puts people and information into silos, creating information asymmetries which are exploited to influence if not control user behavior on the Internet. Facebook took down 6B accounts in 2019 and says at any given time, 5% of their user base (150M) is fake accounts. This is because fake accounts are effective for behavior modification, dissemination of misinformation and disinformation, and inorganic virality. Fake accounts, false claims, and information asymmetries also enable scams, predators, and trolls to run rampant and pop up again after detection, creating an endless whack-a-mole dynamic. Because our information is in silos and commercial sites avoid using links (so that they keep users on their sites for advertising and data extraction), very little context exists on today's web pages. To get context, we must use search, but search like social media puts people in filter bubbles. The there is no possibility of shared context for communication and collaboration, which prevents people from being able to think, learn, and build knowledge together. Hence, blacks and other groups do not know their history or control their narrative.  

A quantum leap over existing baser tech, Presence is a next-generation browser for the OverWeb and the first browser to implement the 2017 WC3 annotation standard. The OverWeb is a safe digital space over the web in the annotation layer. Unlike other browsers, Presence has unique secure, private accounts. Each person can have one and only account, which can be used to access any Presence overlay app and join OverWeb nations. For each app, the user can have a unique profile that connects to one Presence account, thus creating the possibility of a digital space without fake accounts, bots, predators, scam artists, etc... 

Presence enables on-page presence, whereby users can see, meet and interact over webpages. Users can connect and collaborate with people who care about the same issues as evidenced by their presence (and interactions) on the same webpage. 

Presence also enables on-page interactions, whereby participants have a collection of smart tags that can be used on any web page, such as notes, bridges, conversations, polls, check-ins, events, and lists. The bridge enables users to connect the relevant information ecology into a collective learning graph, which connects the world's information, thereby democratizing linking and enabling ubiquitous context. 

This project is for everyone and can benefit all communities, like any browser. We however have a beachhead market in black people, starting in the United States and spreading to through the Diaspora and to Africa. We are developing a partnership with the 100-US city Black Gold network to be our initial base of users. We have been have ZOOM meetings with leaders in the Afrofuturist, social entrepreneur, homeschooling, and black empowerment communities.

As a community that was stripped of its culture, language, heritage, and history, black people in the formerly enslaved diaspora have had to conceive and build a future through grit, creativity, and improvisation. Thus, the emergence of the Black Speculative Arts Movement has emerged in the last decade. We have received enthusiastic support for the project as blacks need to understand and control the truth about their history and how it connects to the present, in order to chart the most viable and beneficial course to a future that works for all. 

Presence enables blacks to meet in a safe digital space over web pages of their mutual interest and to connect the relevant information ecology into a shared context for communication and collaboration.     

By making people and thinking visible on web pages in a safe digital space, Presence relates to all the dimensions of the Elevate prize. I don't believe it is possible to solve the most difficult problems of our world without shifting our relationship with information and therefore how we interact with each other and information on the Internet. Today's Internet silos people and information. Presence will enable people working on specific issues to meet and connect on web pages and to connect the relevant information ecology into a map so they can think, learn and build knowledge together.

The spark came in 2014. I wanted to create long term conversations about things that matter at scale. I observed that conversations on the Internet seemed to have a half-life measured in days at best.

I thought that there should be a place that anyone could go for any subject, with any level of understanding of the area, and get a high level understanding of the issues/inquiries and be able to drill down as desired. 

All experts told me that we have the information we need but not the collective will needed to do what is necessary. My hypothesis was that we do not have the appropriate information architecture to support collective wisdom.

Photo by: Albert Dera

According to the Trivium, wisdom depends on sense-making, which depends on knowledge.   

Our knowledge base sucks. But there is a possibility that by better organizing the information, we could evoke a better collective response. I began thinking about reorganizing the information on the web, and in particular about connections in the web and connections in our brain. It came to me that we needed to make the Internet more like the human brain. Thus, emerged the notion of the bridge.

My daughter is my motivation and inspiration. 

When she was two weeks old, her mother laid her on my chest. I heard her gurgle, smelled the most divine baby smell and feeling so grateful to be able to finally relax with my daughter. Over the course of minutes, she inched her way up my chest and snuggled into my neck. It felt like I was being nuzzled by a sweetest being in the universe. And then something happened that I cannot explain. I felt an electric pulse go through my entire body as if every cell was lit up. I knew at that moment, this was the most important relationship in my life and that I had changed but I didn’t know how initially.

In the next week, it came to me that when she is a young adult, I needed to be able to look her in the eyes and tell her I did everything I could to make this a more peaceful, loving, and joyful place. At the time, I didn’t know what to do but it launched me on a two-decade quest to figure it out, which has led me here.

Collective intelligence, wisdom at scale has been my obsession for the past decade. I have been thinking and having conversations about this with now hundreds of people. Through this process, I have taken the notion of Presence from a concept to a design to an implementation plan, identifying use cases and beachhead market, and beginning to develop relationships that support its emergence. I have a patent for the underlying bridge technology. I have considerable startup experience including failures and successes, and am extremely passionate about this. I can build teams and have a clear understanding of how we need to move forward in a way that is financially sustainable and socially impactful. Best perhaps is that I am coachable. And now I found you. I'm ready. Let's go. 

It was Pacha’s time to shine. We chose the crowdfunding PR company recommended by IndieGoGo. They botched the campaign. Despite my protestations along the way, they always talked me down, lauding their experience and track record, which was very good. Ultimately, they were a complete disaster, spending $7000 on ads on launch and getting less than $100 of sales, wasting my last $30K.  

Everything was going wrong. 

Yet, I kept my head up. Despite the looming disaster, I made myself enjoy the launch event. But, ultimately, I wasn’t confident that my social capital could resuscitate the campaign to the tune of $24K in a holiday week, so I let the campaign go.

I was moving slow and feeling down for several hours. But then I remembered helping my daughter refocus after losing Secretary to the class clown in 5th grade. I asked myself, “How can this be the best thing ever?” My first response, like my daughter before me, was “It can’t.” 

I expanded my thinking. And then out of the blue, it came to me, I was supposed to be working on Bridgit and the OverWeb. The Universe had told me unequivocally to switch focus.

Before Covid-19 hit the Bay Area, after 18 months of pitching a general use tool, and six months of investigating potential beachhead market, we had settled into the notion that our beachhead application would serve researchers. We knew that there was a solid market for market research, university and academic research, legal research, and the like. 

But in early March, before the lockdowns, I decided to change course and focus all of our energies on Coronavirus response. I recruited teams of friends and colleagues to join me in a series of 4 hackathons including the Johns Hopkins CBID Covid-19 Design Challenge in which we developed the Journal of Incomplete Research, the Coronavirus  Hackathon in which we developed Skōōl, and the EuVsVirus Hackathon in which we developed CitizenFact. We were in the finals of the Coronavirus Hackathon and waiting for an offer from the host CommonVC for investment and/or incubation.   

Afterwards, I recruited a team across organizations to convene the Infodemic Challenge: Stoptlight ATL. Out of that, these is an emerging Fact Checking Tech Alliance, which wants to use OverWeb tech to build an API-accessible universal false claim and fact check knowledge base.

We are reinventing a mature technology - the browser - that is a crucial aspect of the web, yet limited and taken for granted. In 1995, annotations was removed in Mosaic's transition to Netscape while Microsoft Internet Explorer was being pre-loaded on all PCs. We are building next-generation browser technology that builds an entire ecosystem of people, information, OverWeb apps, and a universe of digital nations in the annotation layer.

A safe digital space in the annotation layer with one account per person is antithetical to today's Internet platforms, which are tolerant if not enabling of fake accounts, trolls, and abusers. Imagine feeling safe online. 

On-page presence does not exist on the web except in limited manifestations with Google Docs and Spotify's admin tools. We bring presence to the entire web so people who are interested in the same topics can meet each other synchronously or asynchronously on web pages of their common interest.  

On-page interactions makes thinking visible. Imagine a future where you have access to thousands of smart tags that can be used on any content throughput the web, in virtual worlds, and the physical reality. The basic ones - notes, bridges, lists, conversations, polls, events, collaboration requests - are the core and can be used by most if not virtually all OverWeb applications. 

The patented bridge smart tag democratizes linking, enabling anyone to connect two pieces of content on web pages with a relationship. The bridge creates the possibility of ubiquitous context.  

Our theory of change is that if we make thinking visible at scale, people will quite naturally begin thinking, learning, and building knowledge together. This will create the possibility of, for the first time, shared context, collective sense-making, collective intelligence, and collective wisdom at scale. This is what was alway envisioned for the Internet. But just like the Coronavirus we can hardly imagine the possible renaissance when we use the Internet as the foundation for planetary cognition and a collective response that shifts our relationship with the natural world and each other. Thinking, learning, and building knowledge together is a next quantum leap for humanity. Not only do we get the information for collective sense-making, but a get the ultimate tool for collaboration as well. This is the change that changes everything. 

We're a different species after this - homo cogitatio collectivus.

We have safe digital spaces. We can meet people we would never meet in this Internet and start projects for the betterment of humanity. We can join digital affinity nations. We each have one account, hundreds of profiles and smart filters, access to thousands of smart tags, millions of apps. Many nations. One single sign-on. One earth. You can see the history of discussions and public interactions over time for any piece of content. You can see everything anyone thought was context. Your presence browser gives you access to a collective learning graph that democratizes linking and enables ubiquitous context. Wherever you are - online content, in a virtual world, or in the physical reality - you have access to deep layers of context for anything that you focus your attention on. You will find the information you need when you need it, your mental doppelgängers, and your future collaborators.

We have not launched yet, so we are serving only the several hundred people  with whom we are in conversations about a digital black nation and a black browser. 

In one year, we will be serving 1 Million black people and allies that speak English.

In five years, we will be serving 100 Million people across the globe. 

Out goal is to get 1M+ Black people on Presence by Juneteenth 2021. For the first year, TMBK2PT0 will be the exclusive ethnicity-based nation. We will open up for other ethnicity-based and spiritual/religious-based nations after that. We intend to achieve breakeven by Juneteenth 2022. We intend to have the community own TMBK2PT0. In five years, the OverWeb foundation will be a thriving universe of digital nations in the annotation space. We will have started over a dozen hybrid companies including Skōōl, CitizenFact and the Universal Fact Checking Database, as well as at least a dozen OverWeb nations. There will be hundreds of smart tags, tens of thousands of OverWeb applications, and 500M OverWeb verified account participants. In five years, the OverWeb is involved in over 50% of Internet commerce and 20% of the Internet information. The first supporters of this project will be considered geniuses. Is that you?   

Being a black man is not generally helpful for raising capital or connecting with non-black influencers and thought leaders in the Internet world. But the main barrier is perhaps complacency when dealing with the very real threats to our personal sovereignty posed by the Internet. We have serious false news, privacy, exploitation, scams, predatory behavior issues on the Internet. They can all be dealt with through a new way of doing and being the Internet anchored by a next generation browser like Presence. It's not complicated. We need a safe digital space. We need presence on web pages. We need interactivity with content on web pages and to be able to make our thinking visible. We need linking to be democratized. We need context. We need digital nations. We need to rethink the browser. In five years, the biggest obstacle will be legal challenges that want to stop this truth train.   

I plan to partner with organizations that have strong networks, are looking to support projects like this, and are able to make connections in ways that lead to mutually-beneficially collaborations. 

I will work with thought leaders and influencers, and offer thought leadership on the OverWeb, making thinking visible, and the important concepts underlying this work. We will follow the Category Creation model.

I have a top attorney in Richard Horning, Esquire of ReedSmith in Palo Alto and San Francisco. He was the first attorney of Intel and named the company. He has been super lawyer of the year multiple times. He is prepared to field the likely objections and claims when bad actors see Presence's positive impact in the world.

We are a member of Black Gold and we are looking to partner with them to be the initial user base for the Presence browser and the TMBK2PT0 nation.

We are partners with UMI, a social enterprise out of Pittsburgh. Uni has been a partner with Bridgit on Presence since its conception after the George Floyd killing. UMI is the campaign and outreach arm of Presence, building partnerships as well as businesses and leading the development of the Timbuk2pt0 nation. 

Our business model is to offer paid accounts that enable one to be a citizen of a nation and earn value for their creations. We will also offer free accounts that enable one to interact with, create, and share content. The citizenship monthly subscription or one-time fee ($300) is shared with the nation through which the subscriber comes. 

OverWeb applications pay a transaction fee of 3-10% depending upon volume and/or a presence fee. 

We will also have digital reward system that will reward users for the value their contribution creates in the ecosystem. This will likely become a digital currency when the regulatory environment becomes more favorable. If so, we will likely pre-sale or do a public offering for the digital currency.  

There are a number of other revenues streams including data licensing, machine learning dataset rentals, and more that we will explore.

We will fund our work with combination of sustained donations by digital nation citizens, grants, selling subscriptions, transaction fees, and raising investment capital. 

Our social enterprise and non-profit work are embedded such that the enterprise and the social program are one and the same, and the business is created to serve clients, which is central to the mission.

This is a fee-for-service for subscription with subsidized support for low income clients. We also provide a market linkage for clients to sell their anonymized data. We also serve as market intermediary, enabling client organizations to expose their data and interactions over relevant websites, thereby making thinking visible and creating immense value. 

We have raised $153K funds for Bridgit.io, Presence's parent company. This mainly was used to develop an alpha that demonstrates bridges and notes. We have not raised for Presence. 

We are pre-revenue.

We are looking for $500K-5M in grants and corporate donations, in which case, we may raise less through investment.  

We are raising $100K through an initial crowdfunding campaign, then another $970,000 through crowdfunding, both targeting the black diaspora. The crowdfunding will have citizenship in the TMBK2PT0 nation as the primary perk. Part of the crowdfunding will be equity crowdfunding so that non-accredited investors can participate. 

In early 2021, we will raise a $7-8M seed round in direct equity investment.

In early 2022, we will do a public offering, most likely of our digital currency, using a Reg A+ so that non-accredited investors can participate. 

I am applying to the Elevate Prize because it seems like you may give consideration to ambitious projects like Presence. As a black founder doing high tech for social impact, there are very few places that I can be competitive. The Elevate Prize could help me overcome the funding barrier. Only 1% of the VC goes to black founders so we are at a distinct disadvantage. And having the Elevate Prize as an "investor" in the work would be very helpful in subsequent fundraising not to mention the progress that we can make with the additional funds. Of course, we could also benefit deeply from resources such as education, mentorship, and connections that can help ensure that we make the best strategic choices and find the support we need to develop and bring Presence to market in powerful way.

As an early stage social startup building a groundbreaking high-tech browser that will require a socio-technological movement, we know that we need education, mentoring, and support in virtually every arena possible.  We need help with funding, especially identifying family offices that want to support racial equity and black founders. I of course can find talent, board members, and advisors but at the same time, I would be interested in engaging with talent and influencers connected to the Elevate Prize network.      As a product management practitioner, I am always interested in marketing support that help figure out how to best bring social good projects to market.  Perhaps the Elevate Prize can also help us find the right CMO. 

I am a paying member of the Black Gold network and am in conversation with them about being the initial base market for Presence.

I want to partner with organizations that want to be part of a global ecosystem of products, services, and support for blacks and black businesses. 

I want to partner with organizations that want to have a presence or an application on the OverWeb. I would like to provide them a platform for exposing their information and interactions on all relevant web pages. They can create a OverWeb app that makes their information available on relevant web pages so that Presence users can see and interact with their brand and information wherever relevant.

I also want to partner with organizations that want to fund and support racial equity and black people in the United States in particular. 

I want to partner with Mozilla and use their FireFox browser codebase. 

I want to partner with Andreessen Horowitz and other Internet pioneer VCs and family offices to fund this project.