Page 26 - IB FEB 2019

Business Intelligence - PacIFIc

Fiji’s onshore fisheries. That’s where the
idea for this company came from,” said
katafono. “At the time, I was working
for the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries
Agency (FFA), so the outcome of that
workshop was that Fiji had a long way to
go in terms of having a good traceability
system and that there were challenges
in terms of manpower, resources, col-
laboration between stakeholders, slow and
inefficient manual processes and lack of
really good integrated data systems. Fiji
isn’t alone in those challenges. I’ve been
lucky enough to work across the Pacific
and those challenges exist in most of the
small islands developing states. Follow-
ing that workshop, my wife Shauna and I
talked about these challenges and we saw
an opportunity there to use our skills and
our knowledge. Shauna was a fisheries
officer in Samoa, and I was lucky enough
to work in regional fisheries for about six
years and a decade of IT across the Pacific,
TraSeable founders husband and wife team Ken and Shauna Katafono with Fiji’s Fisheries minister Semi so we were able to combine our passion
Koroilavesau Photo: TreaSeable Solutions
in fisheries and technology to start off this
Scanning the story of a fish company,” katafono said.
“Many entrepreneurs in Fiji will tell you
Katafono brings new technology to Pacific fisheries that it’s really difficult to start a company
and the same was for us. We had no
experience in business, we didn’t know
IMAGINe typing a code from a can of tuna men are required to register their catch on how to run a business, but we threw
into your phone as you stand in a super- the blockchain through Radio Frequency ourselves into it and we learnt along the
market aisle to find out where the fish in Tagging (RFID) and scanning of fish. way. But it’s even more challenging if
the can was caught, and the name of the With such transparency in the supply you’re a tech entrepreneur in Fiji trying
ship which landed it. chain, the work is expected to play an to use innovative technology, trying to
This is the vision of information tech- important role in efforts to weed out Il- introduce new business models. There
nology professional ken katafono, who legal fishing and human rights abuses, aren’t many tech entrepreneurs and there
is breaking new grounds in the Pacific. as consumers will be able to get detailed aren’t many service providers that offer
He has just launched TraSeable Solu- information about the product they are software services, which is what we do.
tions Pte Ltd, a fully home-grown tech buying. There isn’t anyone else here who offers
start-up specialising in the provision of With a simple scan of a product through blockchain technology and wants to bring
blockchain-based traceability solutions to a smartphone app, the story of the fish it to market like we do.”
the region’s fishing industry. from sea to plate is instantly told. In- The technology’s relative newness glob-
It’s a pioneering move, given that block- formation like vessel name, country of ally makes it a virtual unknown in Fiji and
chain (or Distributed Ledger Technology registration, name of captain, method and the region, with just a small community
as it is often referred to) is in its infancy location of original catch, would be avail- of IT people in the region familiar with
in the region. able to consumers. blockchain, and an even smaller group
The company says the technology it TraSeable has also started working with who can say they have worked with it.
provides will provide a degree of transpar- Fiji’s fisheries sector and ministry to help Its most popular application is in the cre-
ency for our region’s fishing industry that digitise a number of processes, most of ation of digital money or cryptocurrency,
has never been seen before. which are still done manually. Migrating which is increasingly making inroads
The Blockchain Supply Chain Trace- from paper to digital for documents such into international finance, but even then,
ability Project uses digital technology to as permit applications, will save all parties blockchain remains a low-profile technol-
strengthen the supply chain management time and money. ogy in the Pacific.
of the fresh and frozen tuna sectors in the But how did it all begin? What is it Still, there is a consensus amongst
Western and Central Pacific regions. about this technology that has influenced technology experts that blockchain will
It is a collaboration involving TraSe- an ordinary family man with virtually no become as much a part of everyday life
able, WWF through WWF-New Zealand, entrepreneurship experience, to leave paid as the Internet is today, although, for the
WWF-Australia and WWF-Fiji, global tech employment and risk a foray into business general consumer like you and me, no
innovator ConsenSys, and tuna fishing by setting up the only traceability technol- knowledge of how it works is necessary
and processing company Sea Quest Fiji ltd. ogy company in the Pacific? except that it will birth new possibilities
By using blockchain-based traceability “Our journey began 18 months ago that will change our daily tasks. Money
solutions, a tuna product can be traced here in Suva when I participated in a transfer, for example, could be done with-
back to the original fish caught, as fisher- workshop that was for traceability for out intermediaries like banks or Western

26 Islands Business, February 2019