With GAU Coin and AI, IIM-A papers look at giving cow-based economy a makeover

“As part of the GAU model, multiple stakeholders like companies, NGOs, gaushalas, donors, and the government are brought together. Technology plays a major role in the GAU model by being an enabler. We have also identified various GAU Coin ecosystem partners and enablers, and looked at how they can interact with the ecosystem,” Garg said.

Garg is confident that the model will be widely accepted. “We are trying to change the way society thinks about cows and livestock,” he said.

According to the paper, GAU Coins can be used to perform various transactions in a digital platform in which the different components of the GAU ecosystem can interact.

“While all the other tokens have some sort of monetary or similar incentives in mind, a social token like GAU Coin is not meant to do that. The primary purpose of this token is to bring individual involvement in the ecosystem and tech platform participants,” the paper said.

GAU Coins can be earned by taking part in activities linked to the GAU ecosystem. These tokens cannot be bought, but can only be earned through service, Garg said. “It cannot be used for money, that is very clear. Maybe in the future, if that happens, it might become more attractive financially, but our aim is to keep it a service thing,” he said.

Apart from using blockchain technology for the tokens, the GAU model also involves the use of AI-based animal facial recognition technology, which was proposed in another paper, authored by the same team, published in 2022.

Garg says the animal facial recognition technology would make accounting of the cattle easier. It would enable the ecosystem to keep a track of how many cows there are, with the face recognition system helping avert “spurious counting of cows”.

Though GAU Coins have not yet been rolled out, the GAU model is already being piloted in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura and in Gujarat’s Vadodara, involving around 50,000 cows. A website and a mobile app has been launched, allowing the public to participate in the ecosystem.

According to co-author Gaurav Kedia, under this system, money from donors go to partnered NGOs, who then connect with fodder-providing companies and make sure that cow owners or gaushalas get the required fodder. In return, the gaushalas can provide cow dung to the NGOs or fodder providers, which they can use for fuel, manure and other purposes.

Kedia, chairperson of the Indian Biogas Association as well as co-founder and CEO of TechMachinery Labs, said, “Cows have been an intrinsic part of our homes… Even today, there are people who are doing great work for cattle, but in silos. The idea is to use technology as a handshake between these people. First, we used facial recognition through AI, which helps the donor to track the cows transparently, followed by the GAU Coins for an end-to-end circular economy.”

In the longer run, the model aims to remove the donor component, Kedia says, explaining, “Anything based on donations is not a real business model. The idea behind this is to provide a whole ecosystem for cattle and stakeholders where gaushalas can have liquidity, afford land of their own and not just depend on the donors.”