Futuria is a Uruguayan media innovation lab that appears on the scene to solve problems that already exist. As a team, they believe in the necessity of this A more democratic and decentralized Internet And they choose to build solutions on top of the blockchain. They are not convinced that this technology is the solution to all problems, but they are ready to explore the possibilities generated by web3.

They had to start somewhere, so they chose to use decentralized data storage in blockchains. what does this mean? That once files are uploaded, they cannot be downloaded or modified because instead of being on a specific company’s servers, they are verified by all the nodes that are part of the block chain.

With this technology, progress can be made in the fight against censorship, a real problem that some Latin American media are currently experiencing.

The first project is cooperation sites of memory, Collective and website dedicated to Collect and synthesize information from the previous authoritarian period and the last Uruguayan dictatorship (1968 to 1973 and 1973 to 1975).

From 2021, information is digitized and uploaded to the web page; With Futuria, this information will be stored other than on the Internet—via a centralized provider—in a decentralized manner in blockchain technology.

The beginning of endless possibilities

Futuria is a spin off daily, a Uruguayan media that operates within a cooperative dynamic. “From the beginning we were committed to developing the open source technology that made it possible to be where we are,” he told Infobae Its founder, Damian Master.

In 2019, they received funding Google News Initiative To create a utopia, a technology that integrates the development created by the media and aims to enable other organizations to use this open source technology, while improving it as a society.

“Small media outlets cannot run the technology race required to survive on their own. The idea is to create a media community that can use different tools, improve them and publish the code,” said Osta.

Utopia was promoted and received funding from LNational Agency for Research and Innovation (ANNI) The development of the second phase and in this framework is that a module will be added that integrates blockchain technology: it is called Futuria and the stake is at the regional level.

Blockchain? Web3?

A blockchain is like a ledger, except that no one controls it. Once it is programmed in a certain way to perform a certain function, all users are on an equal footing, no one can change it, and this transaction is verified multiple times in different nodes, offering a decentralized and more secure system.

Cryptocurrencies, for example, are built on the blockchain, but they are only one of the many possibilities that this technology offers. It can also be used to store information, as in this first implementation of Futuria.

Web3 is, in a simplified way, the “New Internet” built on blockchain and all the possibilities it brings.

“We do not idealize blockchain technology, nor do we demonize it. We believe there is a web3 in the making – and it won’t necessarily be better than web2 (what we know so far), but it does lead to a conversation in which the vision of media democratization must be defined by Master.

“Web3 is much more than a bunch of mommy’s kids playing millionaires,” he thinks, and that’s why he’s looking to decentralize storage in addition to funding, which few companies currently have.

With this idea in mind, the team started two affiliations: one with Protocol Labs and the other with Sites of Memory. Additionally, they have the backing of the Solana Foundation (founders of Solana, the third most used blockchain in the world).

Futuria and IPFS

Generally, organizations or companies use a website to publish information hosted by a service usually offered by companies such as Google and Amazon. Hosting is a service offered by certain companies to store what is published on web pages on physical servers. However, this system has the disadvantage that the information remains somewhat vulnerable because it is centralized in a physical location that, moreover, does not belong to the company that owns the website.

Another option is to have your own servers. However, this is something very difficult, expensive and out of reach for the vast majority of media. Therefore, hiring hosting services is the option used in most cases.

Futuria is trying to offer a new alternative and is working with the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a Protocol Lab project that tries to Create a computer network that stores information in a decentralized manner, making it increasingly resistant to censorship.

“It’s not only difficult for them to download it, it’s impossible because they would have to attack hundreds of thousands of computers that are networked around the world.” Also, as the creator of the file, he cannot download the file after uploading it,” he told Infobae Pedro Koppelmayer, Futuria Coordinator.

“We want to use this technology in the media to ensure that journalistic content is always accessible and not contradictory,” he explains.

Memory locations: first implementation

Places of Memory started in 2019 as a georeferencing project of the places where political prisoners were held during the last Uruguayan dictatorship. The information was scattered across various types of documents, including hard-to-read academic sources.

“We started by creating a file containing information about each location, and then added other types of data, such as people who passed through those locations and politically motivated murders. Then we connected those people and the places they passed through,” he said Infobae Rodrigo Barbano, one of the coordinators of Sites of Memory.

Since it was new content, it was related to the rest. They added all ongoing and closed cases of crimes against humanity, then punished and condemned the repressors.

In 2021, they began to collect and digitize bulletins, flyers and posters created in this context by workers and political organizations that have been preserved to this day. When the opportunity arose to support them in the blockchain network, they did not hesitate to say yes.

“It seemed to us that ideologically it closes very well, and in some ways it’s a way of continuing to collaborate with what different people who are committed to historical memory are collaborating with,” Barbano added.

In this first phase, there were no cards, but 700 bulletins, flyers and posters; 1250 press copies and 200 books are compiled in one year and digitized in A3 scanner. Until now, this documentation is stored on the server and on employees’ computers; With Futuria, it will be stored in a decentralized blockchain. According to Barbano, “Sometimes you think that with the arrival of the digital age, all things are not lost, but in fact they are almost as ephemeral as ever.”

Sites of Memory is a voluntary project, the only cost of which is the server and domain. “We are not going to get any kind of income from any public agency. We enjoy a certain independence that funding can sometimes provide,” Barbano said.

Until now, the work is carried out in contact with various types of organizations that cooperate by issuing documents. However, there are many more who may have information, but because of the low human capital of the memory sites, it is not possible to “go door to door”.

Although, according to Barbano, there are projects of documentary collections on dictatorial periods None of them have enough variety to be related: they are generally databases with different information.

project members

Futuria consists of 4 people: Damián Osta, founder of La Diaria; Pedro Koppelmayer, economics columnist specializing in cryptocurrencies; Maria Catalina Colmenares, Director of Latin American Programs at the Media Development Investment Fund and Evan Henshaw-Platt, founder of Twitter. Advisers include Argentinian Lisandro Acuna and Gonzalo Díaz de Vivar, the creators of LecO, and Agustina Pérez Comenale, a lawyer specializing in technology.

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