We believe data, leveraged in a way that empowers both organisations and end-users, is the key to addressing these major challenges. Access to transparent and trusted data offers organisations the capability of transforming how services are delivered. Decision making becomes data-led. For end-users, they gain control over secured, personal data; the basis for greater agency in everyday transactions.

Utilising innovative technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence and machine learning, AID:Tech has developed and deployed proven solutions for governments, corporates and NGOs. Blockchain becomes the key to securely and transparently capturing data. And, AID:Tech’s proprietary technology enables advances in the management and dissemination of data. In time, artificial intelligence and machine learning will play key roles in making data available in ways that benefit and empower organisations and users.

AID:Tech was the first company in the world to successfully deliver international aid to Syrian Refugees in Lebanon using Blockchain technology. Our products and services help clients and partners address some of the world’s largest social issues as well as targets set by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals – signed on by over 190 countries. Our solutions offer an unprecedented level of insight into performance, transparency, and efficiency – generating rich datasets with which, governments, NGOs and charities can harness to improve how funds, products and assets are distributed and tracked.

AID:Tech CEO & Co-founder, Joseph Thompson, has been recognised as one of only ten global SDG Pioneers by the UN for his work in promoting Blockchain technology and its potential in global development.

A year after its groundbreaking pilot, Oxfam in Vanuatu, together with 17 local and international partners, is scaling its blockchain-based UnBlocked Cash project to distribute cash and voucher assistance to over 35,000 beneficiaries affected by the Category 5 Cyclone Harold and COVID-19.

UnBlocked Cash is now serving as a single payment platform to unite partners in the harmonized delivery of cash assistance, enhancing coordination, collective capacity, and ensuring more value for each donor dollar by boosting the local economy. Oxfam is deploying this solution in Papua New Guinea later this year and in the Solomon Islands in 2021, with the Pacific region leading other pilot locations across Oxfam’s global confederation.

Oxfam’s UnBlocked Cash project, powered by Australian fintech Sempo, is set to tackle the growing humanitarian demands by saving costs of distributing aid by up to 75%, reducing delivery times by over 90%, and bringing more transparency and accountability in the process.

All of this is possible thanks to a blend of humanitarian assistance, digital financial inclusion, and locally-led blockchain innovation. The UnBlocked Cash solution consists of the e-voucher “tap-and-pay” cards used by beneficiaries, a smartphone app through which vendors receive the payments, and an online platform where NGOs like Oxfam can monitor transactions remotely and in real-time.

The innovative use of digital currency, in this case, a digitized version of the local currency in the form of a collateralized blockchain token, has introduced the concept of digital financial inclusion and access to Vanuatu, where the majority of the population are unable to access ‘brick and mortar’ banking services. In other iterations of the initiative, the use of stable digital currencies (stablecoins) as a “borderless” digital store of value has also introduced the potential for the institutional donors to fund, and track funds across multi-country programs, with just a single contribution and access to a central analytics dashboard. The platform also has the potential to flexibly integrate direct cash distribution and individual donations, allowing for a more transparent, direct, and participatory model for humanitarian assistance globally.

Earlier this year, Oxfam won a €1M prize from the European Commission to support the development of this humanitarian innovation beyond the Pacific region.

Vanuatu Pilot 2019

“During the UnBlocked Cash pilot, Oxfam in partnership with Sempo and ConsenSys distributed 966,443 Vanuatu Vatu (VUV) or
11,896.91 Australian Dollars (AUD) to 187 heads of households and 29 vendors, which was estimated to have directly benefited some 1,209 individuals in two urban communities in one of the world’s most at-risk countries.

Over the course of a month, Oxfam and its partners were able to successfully deliver a first-of-its-kind Distributed Ledger
Technology (DLT) based solution employing the Dai (DAI) stablecoin. Additionally, the system piloted in Vanuatu saw the successful deployment of a novel near-field communication (NFC) card, which in tandem with a ‘side-channel’ developed by Sempo, allowed the system to cope with poor internet connectivity while ensuring double-spends were impossible despite offline transactions.

Oxfam set out to determine whether DLTs can reduce the cost and transaction time of cash and voucher assistance (CVA), while improving transparency, security, and overall user experience (UX) within the urban context of Port Vila, Republic of Vanuatu.

With the support of Sempo, the UnBlocked Cash pilot has shown modest cost-savings and significant time-savings related to
operational activities. Onboarding recipients to the platform was reduced to an average of 3.6 minutes per individual compared to over an hour during the Ambae volcano response in 2018. Additionally, the tested system eliminated slow identity (ID) verifications and reduced dependency on post offices or banks to deposit cheques.

The quality of the tested solution, which encompassed transparency, security, and user experience indicators, was found to be
extremely high. Recipient and vendor feedback alike indicates an overwhelming preference for assistance of this type.

BCF aims to transform philanthropy by developing the world’s first decentralized charity foundation to build a future where blockchain technology can be used to end all forms of poverty and inequality, advance sustainable development and ensure that no one is left behind.

The three focus areas are:

1. Working with global leaders and industry pioneers to steer the future of charitable and philanthropic blockchain-enabled standards and regulations.
2. Building Blockchain embedded platform development that advances methods of collection and redistribution of wealth for more direct, scalable, and accessible, promoting deeper and broader participation for giving, receiving, and doing.
3. Creating blockchain-empowered social programs for direct impact on the bottom billion: building community resilience and industrial development with scalable blockchain solutions.

What happens when your ‘play-money’ becomes a treasure chest, and you’re past the satiety point of money? I decided to donate the majority of my cryptocurrency to charities around the world, with an open application process and funding charities big and small. I focused on causes I believe in, or causes I know will work from my experiences. Timed with the 2017 crypto bubble, 5104 BTC was turned into $55 million for charities. I’m happy and proud of the impact that will come, mostly thanks to the amazing charities and the dedicated people behind them.

For Discord see https://github.com/BitcoinAmiens/dogecoin-tipping-bot

Connectivity through the support of thinkers and doers and the pursuit of the same goals. Growth in terms of the social perspective on development and exploiting its potential. Autonomy when it comes to making social choices and the (regulatory) freedom that people experience in their lives.

Your donation changes lives and extends the reach of a charity’s network.

Donations are possible with Bitcoin & Ethereum

We started what would become Cofound.it with a strong belief that the global economy, enabled by an open digital economy, should be open to all entrepreneurs, no matter who they are or where they are from.

Cofound.it was a great idea, built around good insight into how the market would evolve and it was very well timed. During these two years, the blockchain ecosystem and the Ethereum community, in particular, turned into the largest decentralized VC that has ever existed.

Closed down in September 2018