Cooperation engineering
Build the contracts that make cooperation rational
Dacdex designs mechanisms that make cooperation the rational choice, even when trust is absent and moving is hindered by coordination failures
The problem
From hesitation to participation
When the technology is plausible but adoption stalls, the problem may not be the invention. Where each would-be participant is waiting for others to move, coordination fails.
Dacdex diagnoses free-rider challenges, models tipping conditions and uses a combination of data and human intelligence to design mechanisms that make coordination the rational strategy.
Where a technical solution exists, but the market does not coordinate to adopt it, Dacdex steps in to give each actor compelling reasons not to hold back. Collective action could make everyone better off. By rewarding commitments to ambitious goals where threshold conditions fail, participation conditions become more attractive. Participants are either paid on failure, or receive the benefit of the success condition.
Dacdex provides the analytical layer:
- identify the cooperation failure
- size the intervention and success thresholds
- specify the terms that shift a market appetite from hesitation to coordination
- produce a term sheet that can anchor discussions amongst stakeholders
- dynamically adjust the parameters to reflect stakeholder, market, and environmental characteristics
Capability
Structured Design
Collectively maintaining cooperation, independent of public stewardship, subsidies and levies, instigated by bottom-up arrangements, with a range of participating organisations is a comprehensive design challenge. The design studio blends systems engineering with multi-agent reinforcement learning to focus on cooperative intelligence. Use it to set needs, preferences and characteristics that frame a challenge.
Agentic Modelling
Environmental, geo-political and socio-economic characteristics are assigned to agents who develop skills in response to the diverse goals and contexts that are introduced by contracting entities. The agents learn as an engagement progresses and reflect the human foresight and nuance introduced by stakeholders.
Term-Sheet Designer
Cooperation amongst large and diverse groups, in uncertain environments with high stakes, is a design challenge that requires careful consideration of the incentives and risks for each participant and a careful analysis of the coordination opportunity. The terms of cooperation, including the commitments, delivery threshold, eligibility criteria, reward mechanisms, guarantor cooalitions, tail pricing and penalties and time horizons are developed with policy, finance, and procurement legibility.
Scenario Lab
As participants and organisations are introduced, the scenario lab simulates the dynamics of cooperation and the implications of design choices. The scenario lab is a tool for testing assumptions, exploring the possibilities and assessing the robustness of a design.
Who it's for
Incentivise credible market interventions to address public goods failures.
Test whether design conditions could be achieved in given scenarios and under negotiated assumptions.
Communities, suppliers, buyers and funders create actionable market instruments that address coordination challenges.
Grounded in real-world dynamics
A Dacdex term sheet
Dacdex turns a stalled coordination problem into a negotiation-ready contract structure. It identifies the threshold for action, maps the incentives required to get there, and produces structure that stakeholders can test, challenge and refine.
The dynamics of engagement help define the terms of cooperative action, informing institutional and contractual structures that can hold under changing conditions, sustain interventions against market failures, and tilt behaviour toward action.
Starting with water.
Dacdex is starting with a demonstration in the context of water stress and resilience markets, where the coordination challenges are being felt by communities.
Dacdex is in early access, working with governments, researchers, and anchor buyers in water security and supply chain resilience.
Get in touch to join the early access program.