The UN recently announced it was using The Stellar Blockchain to send financial aid to Ukraine.
As the financial infrastructure continues to suffer because of the war, the use of blockchain allows for money to be sent to those in need, faster and cheaper than more traditional methods.
This is just one example of how blockchain can help humanitarian initiatives. In this episode, Lacey Hunter, CEO and Co-Founder of TechAid, joins us to take a look at how crypto can be used for good and the role of Blockchain in humanitarian initiatives.
TechAid is a web3 startup envisioned at the World Economic Forum that enables a data-driven approach to humanitarian aid. Lacey believes access to proper nutrition is a fundamental human right for families everywhere, that should not be dictated by the arbitrary nature of one’s birthplace or gender.
Lacey is passionate about the potential of combining existing technologies to facilitate the connection of food supply with demand, and turning the tide of the escalating global hunger crisis. She is fascinated with the incredible potential of blockchain for the capture and transmission of data.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in hi I’m Kelly bakesman the content director at chican code and today we’re
discussing the role of blockchain in humanitarian initiatives the UN recently
announced it was using the Stellar blockchain to send financial aid to Ukraine as the financial infrastructure
continues to suffer because of the war the use of blockchain allows for money to present to those in need faster and
cheaper than more traditional methods but this is just one example of how blockchain can help humanitarian
initiatives so luckily I have the fabulous Lacy Hunter CEO and co-founder of tech Aid with me today to dive into
this area a little deeper welcome Lacey hi Kaylee thank you so much for having me on thank you for joining us thank you
for taking time out of your morning and to come and have a chat with us can we start with a little bit of background
about yourself please yes absolutely so my background is absolutely not in the
humanitarian Aid sector I was a banker by trade for the first eight years of my career switched to corporate finance
um kind of Midstream and then from there spent the last approximately five years in Tech so I spent the majority of my
time working in very data heavy very data Centric roles um you know obviously as a lender and then you know basically someone
reporting on performance of these very large companies in the United States and uh basically you know got a bit tired
um I had my first child in 2020 mid pandemic that was quite tough you know and yeah and uh was it Amazon at that
time and had really learned you know quite a lot and seen a lot of similar themes throughout the different
businesses I had worked in um and you know had a chance through a startup a friend of mine actually when I
was supposed to be doing fun employment um A girlfriend of mine from business school said hey um would you consider
joining my startup to kind of help us get off the ground and so on and through that opportunity I actually got to go to
Davos and World economic Forum to represent that company and attended a panel where humanitarian Aid initiatives
and the role of technology in those was being discussed and I stopped I sat there I mean it was
a complete happens dance panel the moderator was from Forbes and I thought he seems interesting to kind of hear
from and I brought a gal with me that you know I had just met there said oh this seems interesting and listening to
the conversation I realized like wait a minute all of these kind of solutions and things that I was familiar with in
the the private sector you know especially working for Amazon supporting Amazon Fresh they’re not sophisticated
but they’re super effective and there there might be a role for some of those for for eight organizations and and so
kind of pulling the thread and pulling the thread found you know historically it seems like there’s been some I guess
kind of structural under investment or lack of uh sort of exposure to technology in the aid sector and I
thought well you know I actually can do something with my skill set here that might make a difference and actually
help solve a kind of pressing need then then let me do that so um that’s a kind of brief summary of you
know my sort of very professional corporate background and how I sort of stumbled into the the problem statement that I’m working on today
yeah it’s interesting oh I mean we love to hear different routes in um and coming from Banking and then you
know and finding yourself uh lighter sitting in on a talk about realizing how
Tech can really make a difference because that’s that’s something that I think we discussed that a lot on the
podcast not everybody realizes how much Tech can make an impact especially you
know in Tech Aid obviously um but you know thankfully uh you sat in on that talk and and the rest is history and
well it’s funny yeah yeah so it turns out the moderator who I only knew oh he writes reforms it turns out he had
worked for many years at um usaid also um involved with habitat and uh Peace
Corps and the state department so his background was actually perfect and then the gal that I had kind of brought with
me um was a recent University graduate who had focused a lot of her learning on blockchain and so the three of us are
co-founders of this Venture I mean you literally can’t make it up it was complete happenstance um but kind of combining the three of
our skills that’s and and we all met there we all met in May of 2020 um or 2022 rather
um and we sort of looked at each other and said well wait a minute like could this be a company and and the gentleman
that was the the moderator his name is Rhett power and he was like absolutely like there’s a need for something like
this let’s you know kind of take the next steps and get this push forward figured out vetted Etc so yeah I know
and then as you said completely different routes because I think there’s that misconception you have to have computer science degree so going to Tech
or you know to give it any sort of career in Tech but you all come from completely different backgrounds yep yep
I think that’s a great point and I think you know if you think about users of Technology like the goal is for technology to be really simple not to be
like ah my solution is so Technical and complicated that you must have a CS degree to understand it no I mean then
no one’s going to use it so I think that’s that’s a great point to keep in mind yeah yeah um could you uh well so we’re going to
kick off today’s conversation um which is obvious uh focused on blockchain
I think some people can sound quite daunting and it sounds incredibly complex and there are so many parts to
it and it just kind of makes your brain fry sometimes so could you give us a
brief overview of what blockchain is absolutely so if I I mean I could sum it
up in two words if everyone can sort of just remember these two words like what what is blockchain it’s a distributed
Ledger no one can tamper with it no one can manipulate it and so basically all it is
is a bunch of computers so folks anyone that has you know a computer that’s connected to the internet running a
software and every single one of those computers is a node and that software enables all of those nodes to validate
what’s happened and basically track the record whatever the record is whether it’s you know tokens being exchanged
like folks typically think of cryptocurrencies um but the the uses of everyone being
having visibility to the same information in the same place without having to exchange it or send it or
email it or fax it or do any of these things everyone can see it but also no one can tamper with it
like yeah this is the key concept to keep in mind for things like transparency for things like efficiency
but also for things like maybe might not making right so the one example that I
just I cannot get out of my head and I don’t have a time machine so we won’t ever know how this might have played out
but if for example you think about ownership rights and what that would mean if ownership rights where you say
on chain so if they were on this distributed Ledger where everyone could see them and maybe that was true in 1950
in Cuba what would have happened to all those businesses and all of those homes and all of those buildings that the
government just decided Well that’s not yours anymore it’s mine and I said so and all the records are here on this island and I’m going to change them all
what if all of those records had been on chain what would the response have been
from the International Community instead of well uh we know this is bad and this happened but we can’t really like prove
like there would have been a record of proof yeah and actors from all over the world like it’s borderless it’s you know
so I think about that a lot because I had a chance to go to Cuba as part of my business school cohort several years
back and and seeing like what happens when sort of Might makes right and someone can just write in and say well that’s I
would like what you have and I’m going to take it and there’s nothing you can do about it um yeah like that that’s what I see is the real kind of big
picture use for blockchain is provenance of ownership whether that’s digital Goods or or physical assets
yeah thank you for breaking that down because it does sound incredibly difficult to grasp I think the reason
being I know I think people sometimes see that word in in news articles and they think
oh my gosh I’m never going to understand how that happened the Rebrand it needs a new term like blockchain in terms of
clunky and unfamiliar and threatening a lot of things in Tech need a Rebrand
um because as you mentioned it’s just super simple and they’re really to to
help people and just just to make things more transparent um so yeah I think you’re absolutely
right it does need a Rebrand um within the tech industry um so
can you obviously you just mentioned the one there with Cuba um can you give us some examples uh in
how blockchain has been used for humanitarian purposes yes absolutely so
to get back take our time machine back to present day when this technology does exist and it is actively being used and
there’s actually there’s a couple that come to mind so one I I just love and I actually know the the founder of this
organization it’s called start big and they operate out of India and they basically use blockchain
um not only to track um vaccinations of children so of
families and basically all over India but especially the rural areas they use the tokens that are part of that chain
to incentivize the families to actually take their kids to get vaccinated because maybe they’re gonna have to miss work and travel for a day to get to the
vaccination site hopefully it’s open so not only do they get something for their time but they’re the government has
proof and then they know how many of these children have been inoculated against different diseases and they can
actually form a policy response based on that information like it’s a amazing what that sort of record keeping can
enable versus like well hopefully somebody wrote it down somewhere and how are we going to incentivize people to come get you know get these things the
other one that I would mention um something that I just learned about but it’s called Grassroots economics and in several different places
um mostly sub-Saharan Africa but there’s a lot of communities where the local currency is either filled with
counterfeits there’s not a lot of it because it’s it’s being manipulated actively somehow and so folks literally
don’t have purchasing power they have no way of getting purchasing power to get the things that they need and so Grassroots economics has a little
created community-based tokens that are only useful in like the given communities so they can’t there’s no Arbitrage or any sort of like schemes
um or speculation that can be done with these and all they do is they give purchasing power directly immutably to
the folks in those communities to to basically trade for things that they they wouldn’t be able to otherwise
so if they have fiat currency and it’s pretty scarce and they have some they’re probably going to be using those for
things like Medical Services or whatever else it is but as the kind of digital economy Rises and more and more folks
have these community-based tokens they can at least barter for things amongst themselves and say like okay great like
I’ve effectively doubled my purchasing power and by the way you can see it it’s all on chain you can actually observe in
real time the velocity of money you can see where people are spending and so if you are a donor for example saying like
well I have a particular desire to help this one Community I mean prior to sort of
blockchain entering humanitarian Aid initiatives your options were sort of writing a check and kind of looking at
the site of the provider and saying like Okay hopefully and understanding where my
money is going but I don’t there’s not really good record and I’m not directly seeing who’s receiving it maybe I’ll see a photo of like a representative group
but I don’t really know when that is brought on chain you have an immutable right I mean you can it’s
provable and you can actually see it everyone can see it and so like that like I would just say transparency and
immutability they’re probably like tied for one and two of like why is is blockchain so important but especially
when it comes to um things like Aid initiatives um it’s secure so you know that no one’s
you know able to sort of like steal it it’s going directly to a person’s wallet and you know who that person is I mean
this is this is a big revolutionary change and you know obviously one that I’m quite excited about yeah because uh
obviously as you just mentioned that paper people really worry about when they’re donating where
where he goes and you’re more likely to donate if you can see where it’s going or if you can donate to a project that
that you know it’s you know you’ve bought books for a score or something like that there’s a great not-for-profit
um actually who who I love um uh working with I think it’s called a lend for good
and you basically it’s basically as you said you you can see where your money’s
going it you pick a person that you lend them some money to start a business and then they send the money back to you
um slowly as they have the micro financing program Amazing exactly but
because I mean obviously it’s different to blockchain and an actual donation but because I can see the money going in and
the money coming back but I can actually see the person and I can think actually I can donate more money back to them
because I saw you know the impact that it had it means that it kind of keeps me
in that Loop of thinking oh I keep you know sending money back to a certain Community
um yeah and and that you know with blockchain would just put so many donors at ease
that they can see that it’s it’s going to a good place and being used uh in
communities um especially with donations I know um uh sorry inoculations I know when um
we started with the covered Jabs a lot of people were questioning where they could um help certain communities around
the world weren’t they and you know those that didn’t have uh access to Kobe jebs immediately people were saying how
do I how do I send Jabs to somebody in the world or money for that particular community and actually all you could do
was send it to a massive charity and pray that that trickles down to that
community and that’s it um but obviously something like blockchain
um that can’t be tampered with it’s it’s going to that community and doing that job um I don’t know if you know the answer to
this I don’t want to put you on spot is that why but why was blockchain created do what do you do you know if it
was that was its intention or did it you know obviously started just for sending money
um but obviously now it’s you know got a a great um humanitarian use behind it
sure sure no that’s a great question I think that’s the question so like the original white paper was published by
this Anonymous individual and no one knows what happened to this person so Toki Nakamoto in 2009 and I think it’s
you know like 12 or 14 pages long it’s it’s not the longest read but the the original intent of the creation of
blockchain was basically to decentralize finance and enable say you and I to
exchange monetary value without the presence of an intermediary meaning a bank a credit card processor or or
whatnot so if I wanted to purchase directly from Kaylee and prove immutably
sort of around all the nodes that were using the same you know it was Bitcoin software um that I I couldn’t double spend my
tokens that is what blockchain enabled and it’s it still does but but the I think the
Crux of what folks are are finally starting to grasp and see examples of is like oh wait a minute and then the term
is defy or decentralized Finance so you’ll hear that there are so many other amazing use cases Beyond just D5
that blockchain enables really from a record-keeping perspective because that that sort of was the Holy Grail of like
how can you prevent the double spending problem like if I had if I say I have 100 digital coins and I spend them maybe
50 50 with you and 50 with someone else how how does this sort of community know that I have zero how can I then not take
those same coins and then go spend it with a third party and a fourth party and so that’s that’s what this technology solves and there’s I mean
there’s a whole kind of I actually read a textbook on it that was really helpful and kind of outlined A to B to C and if
you wanted you know to actually learn how to write in smart contracts and code and different things like that that I think probably is not necessary for your
average lay person um but that was the intent and so if you think about that standard
that’s a really high standard to make sure someone’s not basically committing fraud or passing off currency to someone
like here I’m gonna buy a home for a hundred thousand dollars oops I don’t actually have it I mean that said that’s
a very high bar to clear and one that a lot of folks have tried to solve in different um different formats and
failed at so applying that the same sort of framework to just record keeping and
having like perfect visibility so there is no like double spend equivalent or basically just manipulation
like that that’s kind of what you that’s where we end up with um today and now you’re seeing different blockchains emerge um sort of for different purposes
and you’re seeing just a lot of improvements in the industry overall um a lot more participants and a lot of
the it’s encouraging you’re seeing a lot of the sort of speculative use cases kind of go away with the bear market and
you’re seeing a lot of real world use cases finally get their like the attention they deserve I mean the
applications of blockchain for medical records for example of like if you own your own medical data and all of your
records like what does that mean for clinical trials what you should be able to monetize that blockchain makes that possible like all these different things
that that become possible by virtue of this technology are just they’re just awesome and they go so far beyond you
know decentralized Finance but having that be the original use case also super helpful for knowing like okay I
can donate funds directly to someone and know they went to that person and I can
you know see how they’re being used like that is a slam dunk for for sort of Direct Cash
um assistance for Aid and especially with the Ukraine um conflict I think initially it was maybe the first two or
three weeks a lot of folks were like I don’t know what to do and you saw a ton of Airbnb bookings spike in and around
because that was like the only way people could figure out how to like get money they’re like I’m not coming but like here’s I’m gonna book you out for
the year like that’s kind of a manual way to try to get money in but if you can do it directly
again not through an intermediary so that in that example that centralized airbnb’s intermediary of you don’t need
Airbnb to just say I’m going to send money you know to whomever and I can see it
like that is the use case um at least from a currency perspective so there’s I mean there’s tons of other you know
supply chain perspectives and and applications we could talk about but just to kind of keep it high level
um it’s just it’s really powerful and we haven’t seen anything like it previously yeah I I remember that I was going
around social media wasn’t it just book up as many hotel rooms as you can find in in Ukraine so so they can still
um have an income currency yeah exactly have some access yeah yeah or whereas
something like this obviously um you know more people know about it and they’re using blockchain
um is even even easier to use um we’ve spoken a little bit about the benefits there obviously transparency
um avoiding fraud are there any other benefits that you can think of there are so many uh so from I just
touched on for a second but from a supply chain perspective um something called provenance of goods
literally just meaning ownership um so the example I raised earlier was like you know you owned a building or a
business can you know can you prove that on chain the same thing applies um to goods and so this is super critical when
you have companies or Industries like the coffee industry or um you know the wine industry but it’s super important
where the raw inputs come from they’re actually grown somewhere and you want to know for sure like does this Farm use child labor if
they do we do not want to buy from them like if you think about all of the steps Goods have to travel to get to sort of
the end product and the end user from just you know our retail perspective that’s one and then from sort of the
decade perspective another one is just hey if you have an NGO that’s receiving tons and tons of goods and they’re
packaging them up in these boxes how do we know where the boxes are going well there’s something they’re little
you can embed in cardboard now um blockchain enabled NFC or near field communication technology where someone
can literally scan it with their phone and prove that they received the box that we think they did you know or
didn’t and it’s really as easy as a scan on the phone think about like a QR code but one that’s where the transaction
goes on chain and that I mean that alone enables so much uh I guess offsetting or
sort of proactive prevention of things like like fraud and theft yeah which is a huge issues facing the industry of
just like there’s no records if you’re like well I hope hopefully these boxes made it where they’re supposed to go we have no data
source to look at so we can’t say like oh man 50 worked here only 20 worked
here let’s kind of dig in like we it’s just unknown or just sort of accept it as like well that’s how the industry is
there’s a lot of a lot of theft and a lot of waste and fraud but basically the provenance of goods and enabling to
track sort of through the value system really through the supply chain where things are originating and where they’re
going it’s just transformational and not having to send an email do a phone call manually like transmit that information
to every single step just having it on chain uh sort of sort of it solves a
problem that is redundant to all of these parties um in a very streamlined way which is also uh it’s just transformational in
terms of reducing manual effort and just you know redundant activities it might be error prone as well yeah it’s just
having that that I suppose having that trust but not even needing that trust you can see it there
you can see it as it happens um and it’s not just with with money but with Goods as well
um we spoke a little bit before about uh you know charity and and sending money
um but obviously sending large amounts of money and big donors can be it can make you incredibly nervous um surely so
you know do you think the blockchain could revolutionize um uh philanthropy I absolutely do I
think we’re just starting to scratch the surface of how that’s going to look because again the last 10 I don’t know tennis
years 12 years have this this crazy Bull Run that we’ve seen um sort of globally of wow the stock
market kind of just across the board has done really well there were a lot of I just straight up
speculative use cases of cryptocurrency and folks thinking oh this isn’t an asset I’m gonna you know Buy
it’s like you you can but this is no different than buying like Japanese Yen or going I mean for that matter to the
casino and saying I’m gonna put 20 on black and hope hope I win I mean you can do that and that’s fine but it’s not the
same as actually you know investing in a in a business and so since the bear Market has sort of helped kind of strip
that away a lot of folks have realized that but you know maybe did buy early on like gosh I’ve got a lot of crypto and
it’s appreciated like I want to donate it or I want to do something with it where I kind of know where it’s going and how it’s being used
and I think I haven’t seen one yet I have seen basically the equivalent of a Donor advised fund it’s called endowment
it’s amazing um where they are basically set up to take um crypto assets or digital assets from
folks who want to donate them and deploy them into you know the various charitable causes that are desired so
that there’s at least an intermediary that’s that’s focused on that but I have not I’ve not seen a single charity except for the ones that have sprouted
up to say hey like we have a dow we’re taking crypto in and we’re going to basically deploy it directly to Ukraine
um that is sort of doing that as their Charter but I think that’s a huge opportunity and I think maybe one
already exists and more power to them if they do and if they if there isn’t one I
think that’s absolutely some the kind of the next thing that we’re gonna see because again like transparency immutability inability to be manipulated
um like you think about how well a charity like that would do and by the way we actually ran an informal poll
um it’s part of tech day to folks are saying like hey how much more money would you be willing to give to a cause um if you knew exactly where the money
was going and you could see like kpis and records and I think it was like 32 and said twice as much you know I mean
it was a good no and I think no one responded with oh it’s fine I don’t need to see the records I’m not I don’t care
so there’s definitely an interest in this and and given that blockchain enables it
um so it’s going to take the right actor and the right expertise um but I think the the industry and sort
of uh and also just the broader climate with climate change covid inflation like
these existential crises that are sort of Weighing on everyone’s mind you know the conflict in Ukraine that’s
obviously not going to be over anytime soon I mean folks are hungry for real world Solutions and but also for
accountability and to say like it’s not enough to just for you to say that you’re going to do your best
that’s not enough anymore you you have to prove it and now that we have the technology that enables that
okay then let’s kind of take that next step and and really just just do better and and be super accountable
um so yeah I hope there is one um I would absolutely give to them but uh if there isn’t I think that’s gonna
be you know kind of the next thing that we that we see emerge as as part of you
know real world real world use cases that are underpinned um underpinned with blockchain I think it’s
super exciting yeah because it as you said there’ll be no no excuse at that
point really that you’re not proving where the money is going um and it is being used in the places where donors
you know think they’re they’re sending their money for good um so you really need to to be held
accountable for it um and and there’s a way to do that now um
we spoke a lot about the benefits uh of using um blockchain but do you think
there are any risks in using blockchain for humanitarian initiatives um I think there’s a hotel there’s
always risks for sure um there’s also drawbacks I mean it’s still expensive the ux kind of sucks like there’s definitely things to be
improved on but in terms of risks I mean because the the industry is so nascent
uh I guess a term that is is used frequently to refer to a blockchain but the protocol
um so there are you could use ethereum you could use Bitcoin you can use there’s all these different blockchains
that you could use to underpin whatever solution is that you are wanting to deploy
Protocols are still built by people it super matters
who is running that protocol and so I I cannot stress enough I guess the importance of trust and relationships
and sort of knowing who you’re dealing with and what their intent is of you know that that protocol generally so so
one that you know I’m personally a big fan of and I um you know got a chance to meet the the
CEO web Summit last year on a panel is um near foundation and so near I think
they are a protocol and they have um basically kind of a it’s almost like the App Store where they are all these
different solutions that have been deployed on near and they’re hyper focused on real world use cases that are
they’re solving actual problems like education and you know um things like that but there are many
many others not to Dave names but that uh I wouldn’t even consider so it’s
um it’s very important to yeah I kind of know who you’re dealing with know who is kind of the wizard behind the curtain
and I say this is true of all technology it’s it’s just a tool it was still built
by humans and you want to look at that team is the team uh what are their goals how are they
basically measured what are their success metrics what you know what what outcomes are they working towards and if
those align with whatever your project is awesome if they don’t then that’s it’s a non-starter and you’re not gonna
you know it’s I think it’s a Fool’s Aaron to think that you might be able to sort of change the you know the goals or
desired outcomes if if you know perhaps there was a protocol where the entire goal was you know all decentralized
finance and all to do uh I mean basically would have sort of been proved
to be quote-unquote pump and dump schemes where all they’re trying to do is launch tokens increase the price you
know by virtue of getting influencers and celebrities and I think everyone saw that Tom Brady and Matt Damon last year
during the Super Bowl like really okay just to get people to buy so then they could sell I mean this is like the
classic Ponzi scheme rug pull multi-level marketing I mean those sorts of actors
like stay away Not actors like Tom whatever but those sorts of you know folks in the space that are purporting
to offer a real world solution or service like you have to be very careful who you work with big big red flag yes
um [Laughter]
Charities can you use blockchain to fundraise do you think that’s a good idea I think they can but again it’s still
pretty early and I I haven’t seen there there might be uh there might be
some good protocols out there that would be super useful for this I don’t know off the top of my head which the best ones would be but I’m sure there is
probably like a top three list and the way that that can be done super effectively is through something called a Dao or decentralized automated
um organization where you basically can set up voting you can set up governance
it’s all token gated so instead of using tokens to sort of exchange value I could
have a token saying like I’m the um the director or I’m you know basically
have the highest role in voting on this charity and someone else is the secretary and like
here’s how the Voting Rights work and that can be deployed as sort of a means to take funds in and also
have some governance over how those funds are used and distributed that would also that also is on chain
so it’s completely transparent everyone can see it like ah I see that this vote took place and I can I can see that like
of the six people that voted this is how they voted this was the outcome and this is how the money is being used so I
think the answer is yes absolutely and but I would I would suggest at least
considering something like a dow or you know decentralized autonomous organization to govern that instead of just like cool
we’re going to raise money on chain and do everything the way we always have done over here that’s centralized where there’s not really visibility except for
maybe if we’re audited and produce kind of quarterly financials or whatever it is so I think there’s a there’s a play
there um again you have for for someone to really come step into the space and and
and maybe it’s one of the incumbents you know to say hey look we’re going to parallel path we’ve done everything web
2 parlance meaning centralized but we’re going to explore a web 3 route you know maybe you know so maybe it’s the
International Red Cross or you know maybe it’s the world food program or UNICEF and they do both and then maybe
see like oh my gosh how much time are we saving and how much more transparency are we enabling by doing this
the caveat I would say is is organizations like that that are so big it can be really hard to say like Hey
we’re all going to learn this you know no one likes the person room corporate with the clipboard saying hey we’re going to learn this new technology it’s
going to be great like uh so what what may end up happening or my hypothesis is this is going to start with kind of
smaller scrappier actors where there may be orgs of less than 50 people or less than 80 people and it’s exactly the
point you brought up earlier the proof is going to be in the pudding of like well wait a minute how is it possible that these you know six organizations
are providing this level of transparency and I’m not seeing them from these other ones yes that’s where all the donations
are going to go they’re not going to go to the ones that are saying just like oh hey I’m going to wave my hands and say I’m doing my best
so there’s going to be I mean the market will dictate um I think kind of the success or not of
of blockchain for for charitable and humanitarian Aid organizations but I’ve got to believe that the
accountability the transparency the immutability and and that’s going to just drive a ton a ton of Interest which
will drive more donations I think efficiency will improve operating leverage on head count will improve
morale will improve because the other thing that these industries really strong this industry really struggles with is burnout really high turnover
because they’re in firefighting mode constantly there’s not tooling or Automation and actually
one of my co-founders found um a really great study I think it was like 277 uh humanitarian Aid um and
charitable organization actors have been interviewed and 91 said they want automated tooling and standardization
where is that I mean sure you have that if you’re like an Amazon Seller but so that so bringing those things together
um and actually you know using using technology it all exists like using technology in a way that really enables
and empowers these folks that are trying to do good work trying to do the right thing and they’re working super super hard
um and getting burned out I mean the kinds of outcomes that could be enabled are just full like they’re a full head and
shoulders better than I think kind of what we’re seeing today and um yeah it’s exciting to think about how
how things will likely change and improve you know as it increases because I think
really all it’s going to take is one or two use cases improve points for there to be a broader recognition of oh
wait this is what blockchain can do I thought blockchain was just for cryptocurrency and speculation like no
no no it’s it’s it’s revolutionary so um it’s going to be cool to see what
comes next I think yeah anything even as you said a couple of use cases and just
a charity proving you know where where the money is going and and as you said for big Charities that’s just going to
be so valuable for donations because even on the Red Cross if you look on their site when you want to donate it
has all of these different campaigns and you kind of give in hope that it’s going
to that particular campaign whether it’s you know the earth earthquake crisis at the moment or you know something else
that’s happening Ukraine or something else in the world but they do put a little footnote you know that actually your funds might end up going somewhere
else um so yeah which yeah is true and it’s not I don’t think it’s by any bad intent from those folks it’s literally to
enable them to say like okay if we literally can’t come up with a good use then it sort of empowers them to say well this is structurally underfunded or
whatever it is so I don’t but but that is true so so you don’t and then also you can’t see it yeah like well exactly
I gave my hard-earned 100 pounds or 100 dollars and um I hope it works I hope I did
something I feel very motivated to continue I don’t you know I’m not engaged because I don’t feel like I
personally am making a difference yes you know and you can see that you personally make a difference man that’s valuable that’s what everyone
wants that’s what everyone wants at work that’s what everyone wants to do with their resources to feel like oh my gosh
I matter even though it’s small my contribution matters and you know it’s a really big number a lot of very small
contributions times a million times 10 million times a billion you know and
then suddenly you really like enable and sort of unleash and not not only
donations I think our other hypothesis is volunteer hours yes you knew and you could see wow I went and I spent the
weekend doing this and it wasn’t just like a hand to mouth you know cool I helped that one family it’s like oh my
gosh like there’s literally an infrastructure layer that’s enabling the industry at large to benefit from this
thing or like wow with my kind of my input which is my time or my resources I
can see the outputs and they’re they’re getting exponentially better and it’s reporting and accountability in
metrics and kind of all the things that I sort of was my bread and butter in the you know the private sector working for
Fortune 50 for 15 years you know I I uh I think the industry is just hungry for
that and and they’re strapped it’s it’s not as if there’s anyone at any of these organizations that’s sitting around
twiddling their thumbs saying ah yep I’ve got lots of free time and extra Capital like sure I would love to run
some tests they’re like let me peruse and see or let me start an internship program for data scientists like
it’s not a thing it’s it’s and it’s just kind of been looked overlooked I guess in terms of
you know what warrants real sort of tech investment and Innovation and
I mean the there’s a lot of data that suggests you know with the climate crisis everything south of Patagonia or
south of the UK and north of Patagonia if we continue to head the direction we’re going uh that whole swath of land like
basically around the equator may become uninhabitable soon like that’s three odd billion people where are they gonna go
They’re gonna need stuff the latest statistics I think from from the UN is that um the average
humanitarian crisis is protracted so they used to be like about four years in duration now it’s about nine
nine years and and you you have you look around and you see like just crazy amounts of
inequality and you’re like okay I can can I like somehow harness my ability
and you know what would I have to give to actually make a difference like that that infrastructure layer like that’s
what’s missing like I think I’m so convinced like that’s what’s needed and obviously we’re starting small I mean
Tech eight is three people right now but that’s what we’re super interesting super interested in collaborating and
building is like okay and and maybe we get it wrong but hopefully we inspire a few other folks to say oh okay there is
like a really a good use case for you know innovation in the aid sector or hey you know I can contribute the skill set
great like let’s work together and and really talk about an existential crisis
and a set of kind of global problems that’s not going away and it’s getting worse yeah I think people have become
more cynical as well I don’t know what with social media and you can see everything everywhere and fake news and
all of that um I think people have become more and more they question more
um about whether or not they are when they try to do good whether they are doing good and you know corruption and I
think this is um definitely something uh that the tech is there to help change all of that I’m
but what do you think that the future of blockchain will look like then I think the future of blockchain so a
couple things um one actually I think it starts with mobile phones and more actually the sort
of penetration of mobile phones globally going up and up and up and things like 5G and things like kind of portable
satellites that enable kind of anyone to be able to charge a phone and 5G if everyone sort of or most folks had
access to the internet and blockchain enabled Solutions became more commonplace that were accessible via a
mobile phone that is going to change I mean that that is sort of a globe
changing idea and so I think um it all goes back to accessibility
Simplicity and that group that’s really hand in hand with UI and ux so if it’s
really great if you have an amazing blockchain enabled solution that you know does all the bells and whistles but
if it’s complex if it’s complex to look at if it’s hard to use then it’s not going
to become adopted so yeah um it kind of seems simplistic and I think this is missed by
a lot of folks that are really you know into the coding details and are like oh my gosh I can program a smart contract that’s awesome but guess what if only
you can do it that doesn’t help anyone if only you and like your six friends that are all you know whatever it is a
PhD you know computer scientists or mathematicians or you know statisticians can use these things it’s not gonna it’s
not gonna really like move the needle so really solving for Simplicity is the lowest common denominator
um and also just as a sort of general rule to stop talking about blockchain like who cares I mean I don’t talk about
the the SMTP or HTTP when I send an email I just send an email the person
unless you know I spelled their name wrong or something it reaches the intended recipient and that’s great and
I think that’s the next step is Simplicity and then just don’t turn people off by saying like oh this is
underpinned with with blockchain or you know another gentleman I thought used a great example recently is when you use
number and you push the button you want the car to come you don’t want to primer on all of the back end and how it’s
possible and how all the schedules are pooled and all the drivers like you don’t care you just want the car to show
up so I think that’s really what’s that Simplicity better ux and UI you know
sort of more um prevalent adoption on on mobile phones and sort of uh more
accessibility for more folks and that’s just that’s all predicated on on making anything that’s blockchain enabled which
by the way doesn’t need to be everything there’s some very clear use cases like supply chain you know charitable donations provenance of goods but the
things that are like quit talking about the tech infrastructure who cares make sure it works make sure it’s easier for
people to use yes because as we said at the start blockchain does have a PR issue at the
moment and it needs a bit of a brand so I keep talking about it then it’s going to turn people off uh just doing you
know everyday things um we’re nearly out of time I got one last question for you though what’s uh
next the decade oh great question um so actually funnily enough tomorrow uh we are starting in
the new trip accelerator so we were accepted accepted into a six-month accelerator program here in the US and
really what we’re going to be focusing on is a couple things um sort of continuing to run beta tests with Partners improve Out Time Savings
like prove out you know is the solution as good as we think it is in terms of
visibility transparency and also just making the job of anyone that’s in in Aid deployment making their lives easier
because if we aren’t able to drive Improvement for those folks then guess what we’re not going to be able to drive
Improvement for beneficiaries and guess what that means we’re doing something totally wrong so you know continue to run those tests but then also as We
Gather those data points and say hmm how many actors out there are doing this and we can prove with some a b tests how
much time and how many resources these are saving and by the way show you the kind of outputs and the recording that’s possible with this use that to actually
raise money and what we want to do and we’re Incorporated not as a non-profit this is not a 501c3 we want to be held
to the same basically standards of any profit making Venture but we’re also something called
a public benefit corporation which means we hold ourselves to a higher standard to do social good and we’re going to
obviously report out on that but but we want to create something that is sustainable where there’s a very clear
it’s just very obvious of like okay if waste is reduced by X efficiency is
improved by y then X Plus y minus 1 would be the cost of this so that we don’t we don’t end up in a
situation where we say hey here’s this awesome solution and you can deploy it in country and you’re going to
need to write grants forever to support it no like to me that would be the the biggest
shame is to build something that’s awesome that’s not sustainable or could maybe run for three years and then be
like well there’s no way to kind of support it because it just it requires grant funding forever and ever amen and I I
you know I think for myself as a business person it’s really critical that uh you know really revenues have to
equal expenses the revenues have to you know at a minimum equal and eventually exceed so that you have something to reinvest in
the business or to give away or to do whatever with but like that’s what we are figuring out in terms
of like the specific business model and like what pricing would look like um and basically just you know how to
create something that’s sustainable that is attractive and and useful and can sort of like turn the dial like scale it
up or if you’re just a single operator turn the dial back down and just use it at one site um so lots of things to figure out but
it’s quite helpful to be in a time-bound accelerator where it’s like okay six months it starts tomorrow and uh we’re
really excited to you know kind of get going and iron out all the next steps and yeah and really really get this uh
get this thing off the ground oh gosh it sounds like you’ve got a lot on we’d love to have you back at some point to hear how that goes without a shirt but
we are out of time so thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today it’s it’s been a pleasure
absolutely thank you so much Kaylee have a good rest of your day thank you and to everybody listening as always thank you
for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
