iTrade Wildlife - software to detect illegal wildlife sales

即将开展的工作将探索iTrade软件成功商业化所需的关键途径，并制定后续建议。这将通过使用业务顾问来解决以下领域并可能确定我们可能尚未确定的其他领域来实现。具体1。与设立合伙人/股权和公司相关的法律法规要求，例如税务问题b产品使用，例如警察使用自动化系统c服务提供/与客户的合同协议2。市场调查a了解竞争对手的基础，如营销策略和提供给客户b了解客户基础，如提供/服务给客户的水平和收费（组织的预算限制）3.产品研究和开发a将网上贸易扩展到其他区域的潜力b将服务/产品扩展到其他非法贸易领域的潜力4.业务状态通知讨论，以商定PI，co-PI，学校，大学和其他大学员工之间的愿景，公平和关系，我们与他们有合作关系的产品b建立和发展业务的形状。这应该发生在什么时候，以什么形式，如咨询，社区利益公司，有限公司c产生商业计划5。产品/公司的品牌和商标影响摘要：非法野生动物贸易在跨国贩运方面仅次于麻醉品、人口和假冒，估计每年价值190 - 265亿美元。联合国一致认识到，环境犯罪是一种新出现的跨国有组织犯罪形式，需要各国政府作出更大的反应。在肯特大学，我们开发了一种名为“iTrade”的软件，它可以自动识别非法交易的物品，准确率达到90%，每10分钟生成一份报告。通常情况下，执法人员要查明这种形式的网上犯罪，只需手动浏览数千个网页。iTrade会自动浏览所有这些页面，并根据它们的违法可能性进行加权，从而为官员节省大量时间。例如，一名全日制硕士学生花了6周时间搜索eBay，发现在这段时间内出售了199件象牙。我们设想的商业模式是在生物技术行业中使用的，公司提供构建“丰富”分子库的服务，从而节省了研究人员相当多的时间;在我们的情况下，我们将为用户提供“丰富”的非法物品清单，以供销售。因此，许可和利用的成本将根据被许可人的交易平台来计算。换句话说，我们保留软件并提供情报服务。虽然我们将从非法野生动物贸易开始，但该服务可以很容易地扩展到其他形式的非法网络贸易。我们已经在警察局（国家野生动物犯罪单位），英国边境部队和国际动物福利基金会建立了合作伙伴，因此拥有客户群，罗伯茨博士已经与他们合作了10多年。已经与荷兰警察部队就这项服务进行了进一步讨论。据我们的合作伙伴和我们所知，这样的产品或服务并不存在。PI在商业化方面的经验有限，但应该注意的是，肯特大学有一个专门的商业参与部门和技术转让办公室。因此，对于主要研究者和共同主要研究者，关于商业化存在许多“已知的未知”，可能还有许多“未知的未知”。“探路者将使我们能够解决与法律的，金融，商业和营销方面的问题，我们的产品至关重要的成功商业化，通过发展一个后续的资金建议。

The work to be undertaken will explore the critical pathways needed for the successful commercialisation of the iTrade software and development of a Follow-On proposal. This will be achieved through the use of a business consultant to address the following areas and potentially identify others, which we may not have been identified. Specifically1. Legislation & regulatory requirement related toa setting up partners/equity & company eg tax implicationsb product's use eg use of automated systems by policec service provision/contractual agreements with clients2. Market Researcha Understanding competitor base eg marketing strategy & offer to customersb Understanding customer base eg levels of provision/service to client & charges (organisation's budget constraints)3. Product Research & Developmenta Potential for expansion of iTrade into other regionsb Potential for expansion of service/product into other areas of illegal trade4. Business Statusa Inform the discussion to agree vision, equity & relationship between the PI, co-PI, the School, University & other university employees with whom we have collaboration related to the productb Establish & progress shape of business. When this should occur and in what form eg consultancy, Community Interest Company, Limited Companyc Produce Business Plan5. Branding & trademarking of product/companyImpact Summary: The illegal wildlife trade is 4th only to narcotics, human and counterfeiting in terms of transnational trafficking, and estimated to be worth $19-26.5billion pa. The UN recognised by consensus that environmental crime as an emerging form of transnational organised crime requiring a greater response by governments. At the University of Kent, we have developed software, 'iTrade', that automatically identifies illegally traded items with 90% accuracy, generating reports every 10mins. Normally the identification of cybercrime of this form involves law enforcement officers simply going through thousands of web pages by hand. iTrade goes through all these pages automatically weighting them as more or less likely to be illegal, saving officers a significant amount of time. For example a fulltime MSc student spent 6 weeks searching eBay and found 199 items of elephant ivory sold in that time. This could be done automatically with the software in a fraction of the time.The business model we envisaged following is that used in the biotechnology industry where companies provide a service of building 'enriched' molecular libraries thereby saving researchers a considerable time; in our case we will provide users with 'enriched' lists of illegal items for sale from sources under investigation. The licensing and exploitation will therefore be costed on the basis of the licensees trading platform. In other words we retain the software and provide an intelligence service. While we will start with illegal wildlife trade, the service could be easily expanded into other forms of illegal cybertrade.We already have established partners, and therefore a customer base, in the Police (National Wildlife Crime Unit), UK Border Force and the International Fund for Animal Welfare with whom Dr Roberts has been working with for over 10 years. Further discussions have already taken place with the Dutch police force regarding the service. As far as our partners and we are aware such a product or service does not exist.The PI has limited experience of commercialisation, although it should be noted that the University of Kent has a dedicated business engagement department and Technology Transfer Office. For the PI and co-PI therefore there are a number of 'known unknowns' regarding commercialisation and probably many 'unknown unknowns.' The Pathfinder would allow us to address questions associated with legal, financial, business and marketing aspects of our product essential for its successful commercialisation, through the development of a Follow-on Funding proposal.