Humanitarian Blockchain and its Liberating Technologies for Refugees

Last October, dozens of refugees remained stranded in Calais after authorities announced the closure of Calais’ ‘Jungle’. In a report from the Guardian, over 1,000 refugees remained, including more than 100 children, with many facing the prospect of having nowhere safe to sleep.

Yet, with French and U.K. officials accusing each other of not doing more to sort the situation out, the ‘Jungle’ became a poignant representation of Europe’s failure to tackle the migrant crisis.

Humanitarian Blockchain

One organization is stepping forward with blockchain ideas and solutions designed to address some of the barriers that they perceive to be standing in the way of social, political, and economic freedom, not only for refugees but for other disenfranchised populations.

Launched in February 2016 by founder and CEO Julio Alejandro, London-based Humanitarian Blockchain is the world’s first DIY e-governance consultancy project that is attempting to tackle social and global problems using blockchain technology.

Speaking to CCN, Alejandro, a U.S. and U.K. foreign correspondent for Mexican-based newspaper, Excélsior, said:

[Our goal is to] provide financial, communicational, and organizational independence to refugees and the organizations that help them with decentralized, accessible, and non-jurisdictional blockchain technologies.

The organization is attempting to achieve this goal through its four liberating technologies: bitcoin Visa debit cards, Estonia e-residences for high-skilled immigrants, a DAO model for HR NGOs, and non-biometric, reputation-based, digital identities.

Out of the 30 blockchain-for-good use cases Humanitarian Blockchain has mapped, they have identified 30 organizations, mainly startups, that use a combination of these technologies. Furthermore, Alejandro states that costs are reduced by not developing in-house solutions, but by outsourcing actualizations and improvements with cheap implementation.

The cost of the e-residences and a bitcoin Visa debit card is €120 while the cost of implementing a DAO no-managers model and automated Smart Contracts for a small HR NGO is €1,000. Humanitarian Blockchain is planning on using BitNation’s Pangea identity system, which is free, once it’s ready this year.

In consultation with organizations and governments within Europe, Alejandro is examining and promoting the benefits of blockchain technology, analyzing the local ecosystem, and looking at its needs and opportunities for future development.

Last September and October, Students for Liberty asked Alejandro to give lectures and talks in ten countries. In November, he debated on anonymity, untraceability, and decentralization for the European Commission legislation body in Prague before taking his discussion to Tel Aviv and Beirut at the beginning of the year.

By focusing on people that they’ve identified as oppressed, Humanitarian Blockchain aims to serve as contractors and consultants, teaching and implementing pilot projects for social good in complex ecosystems; to match blockchain developers, who might be living in London or New York, with organizations that request their help; and to participate in social competitions that promote humanitarian, social, and political uses of blockchain technology.

Social Experiment

Even though the Calais camp disappeared last October, back in June, Mexican-born Alejandro undertook a social experiment pilot when he went to Calais.

At the end, there were two things that he noticed.

Firstly, posing as a Syrian refugee living in The Jungle, Alejandro found it difficult to pay in a coffee shop with a bitcoin debit card. He said that the issue of having no fixed addressed or job meant that merchants were more likely to ask questions, suspicious of where a refugee may have received the card and how money was put on it for a refugee to use.

He said:

As a brown, heavily bearded, Muslim-looking male, I was denied service and was asked to leave [places of business].

Secondly, they discovered that the inhabitants of the Jungle were often African and Asian economic immigrants hoping to remain anonymous and underground, rather than the highly-publicized refugees from Syria.

He added:

With limited capacities to teach or implement this project in mass scale we decided to re-adapt our strategy into a smaller group: young, anonymous immigrants with risk of radicalization.

As such, the organization identified three types of people that it is aiming to help: political dissidents, victimless crimes, and rehabilitating those who have committed serious crimes, but can’t reinsert into society or the job market, forcing them underground or being radicalized into violent activities.

Alejandro believes that digital identities will help oppressed communities regain their dignity. As they won’t be government sanctioned, he says that reputation-based identities will eliminate violence in case of wrong doing.

He states:

In a post-nation world, if you commit a crime you would get your reputation downgraded. ID and reputation systems are the preventive method towards crime and punitive behavior.

He concludes by adding, that with the use of digital identities, businesses, audiences and stores can ban or limit access for a person into a place, instead of having them sent to prison.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Indian Startup Develops a Next-Gen Cybersecurity Solution on the Blockchain

A new innovative prototype startup powered by blockchain technology for cybersecurity has recently launched in India aimed at curbing the global phenomenon of cybercrime.

Mumbai-based Block Armour was thought up by Narayan Neelakantan, former CISO and Head of IT Risk and Compliance with India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Floyd DCosta, who has a background in management consultancy and spent 11 years at Capgemini.

Representing a disruptive approach to reclaiming enterprise cybersecurity, Block Armour is attempting to do so faster and at a fraction of the current cost. According to U.S. market research firm Gartner [PDF], global expenditures for IT security rose by $148.5 billion from $65.5 billion in 2013 to $83 billion in 2016 with cloud security expected to grow by 50 percent.

And yet, despite a significant rise in global IT security spending, cybersecurity incidents continue to grow across industries with existing solutions struggling to keep pace.

Speaking to CCN, Neelakantan said that the dramatic increase in networked devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) has further complicated the situation while the use of yesterday’s technology to fight cybercrime is further compounding the issue. With cybersecurity challenges expected to get bigger, bolder and more complex in the years ahead, a solution is needed.

He said:

We have emerging technologies like blockchain and TLS technology as well as architectures like the Software Defined Perimeter that can be effectively used to reclaim cybersecurity. That’s exactly what we are bringing together at Block Armour.

Tackling Cybercrime

With the use of the Software Defined Perimeter, the team at Block Armour are planning to use digital signatures based on authentication for humans, devices and data.

According to Neelakantan, this then allows them to securely ring-fence critical infrastructure in addition to providing IoT related security.

As this is an issue that cuts across many industries the interest the team has received is expected to be high from those keen to have a solution that will provide the protection they need.

Whether it provides the answer is yet to be determined; however, given that such a platform could be available before the summer is bound to give many the confidence that Block Armour may provide the answer where others have failed.

Since the launch of the prototype, Block Armour has received positive feedback on the potential that it can achieve. As a result, the team are keen to bring the solution to the market with an alpha version expected to be launched in February and a beta version expected to launch in May 2017.

Images from Block Armour.

Blockchain Academy Partners Satoshi Centre to Boost Bitcoin Education in Botswana

The South African-based Blockchain Academy is to collaborate with the Satoshi Centre to drive bitcoin and blockchain education in the African nation of Botswana.

According to an announcement from the Blockchain Academy, a two-day course, from the 1-2 May, 2017, will provide a detailed understanding of what bitcoin is and its distributed ledger. Attendees will also learn how they can utilize the technology when it comes to constructing their own applications.

Sonya Kuhnel, managing director of the Blockchain Academy, said that there is a call for blockchain skills in South Africa with Botswana pegged to see an increase in demand too.

She said:

This is an extremely interesting space to be involved in and provides many opportunities for incumbents and individuals to experiment with this emerging and disruptive technology.

Earlier this month, a Blockchain Academy was launched in the south Indian state of Kerala where it will endeavor to research and provide consulting with blockchain technology. Along with providing training and education in South Africa and India, the Blockchain Academy, established in 2015, does so too in Zimbabwe with clients ranging from Barclays, legal firms and entrepreneurs.

Africa’s Blockchain Development

The progress of blockchain in Africa is continuing at an accelerated pace as they become more embracive of the technology.

This can be seen through the African financial system, which is realizing the potentials it holds particularly when it comes to reducing the cost of banking transactions. The governor of the South African Reserve Bank also revealed that the bank was open to digital currencies and blockchain, with many speculating that of the African nations, blockchain will take off first in South Africa. While the global banking consortium led by R3 saw its first African member join ranks in Absa Bank, which is one of South Africa’s largest banks.

The blockchain expansion that Africa is experiencing is set to continue as more organizations embrace the technology for what it is known for: transparent and efficient that delivers an effective solution for many sectors.

Also popular in Africa is the use of the digital currency, bitcoin, which is helping to grow many cashless societies on the continent.

Only recently, BitPesa, a major bitcoin payments startup that was launched in Kenya in November 2013, raised $2.5 million in a Series A round of funding. Such an amount is expected to help the company’s growth with an emphasis in Nigeria, which is BitPesa’s largest market.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

G20: Blockchain Essential to Build Inclusive Transparent Digital Economy for All

Blockchain holds the key to building an inclusive digital economy that is secure and transparent for the globe’s citizens, according to a new G20 report.

Published last week, but updated earlier this week, the report details how the blockchain can play a vital role in improving economic resilience as ‘governments fight to restore the public’s faith in cross-border economic cooperation.’

Julie Maupin, author of the report and a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) said:

The G20 must take decisive steps to harness this technology in service of its policy goals across the core focus areas of economic resilience, financial inclusion, taxation, trade and investment, employment, climate, health, sustainable development, and women’s empowerment.

She adds that failure to do so ‘risks further fragmenting the global economy, undermining public trust in international economic institutions, and pushing the most cutting-edge blockchain developments into dark web deployments that are beyond the reach of government influence.’

However, she states that:

By acting now to embrace blockchains’ socially beneficial properties and minimize their potential downside risks, the G20 governments can lay the foundation for a just, prosperous, and truly shared global economy.

Banks Efforts to Implement Blockchain

While some don’t think the blockchain is going big anytime soon, despite investment being poured into researching and developing the technology, determined efforts are being undertaken within the financial sector to implement the blockchain to improve services for its customers.

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, realizes the potentials that the technology can provide.

In a report, he said that while the distributed ledger poses risks, it also creates new benefits for businesses and consumers, creating a new financial system for a new age.

In her report, Maupin is aware of these risks by saying:

Blockchains also introduce grave new risks to the global economy by displacing or bypassing some of the intermediaries upon whom governments have historically relied to implement important regulatory safeguards.

While she states it’s not clear how safeguards such as the Financial Action Task Force can combat tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing and other dark web activities, she says that the blockchain has already helped to replace failures within the financial industry.

They are helping to expand financial inclusion to previously unbanked populations. They stand poised to improve the oversight of international markets by supplying policymakers with real-time data on financial flows and asset class risks.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Humaniq: The Startup That Will Give $10 to 2 Billion Unbanked People

Over 2 billion people do not have access to traditional financial institutions that can provide them with modern financial services. These institutions simply cannot reach them, and that forces these people to transact only using notes and coins. Moreover, according to a World Bank estimate, there were over 1.5 billion people in the world with no identification documents in 2016 – so even if there are financial institutions in their area, they are unable to use their services.

Enter the Humaniq project. Humaniq is a blockchain-based project that will allow the unbanked to have access to modern financial services, as long as they have a smartphone with a built-in camera in it and internet access. Humaniq’s goal, according to their white paper, is to integrate 2.5 billion people into the global economy, empowering them and giving them a chance to emerge from poverty.

The goal will be achieved through an egalitarian emission mechanism in which the amount of coins one user can mint is limited. In order to mint coins, however, there is no need for specialized hardware, electricity costs, or a wallet already filled with coins. The project’s GUI is also based on easily understood symbols, not text.

Humaniq describes it as proof-of-face and believes it to be the fairest possible system. Essentially, every user has to go through a biometric identification process that takes less than 20 seconds to pass, and requires no e-mail or identification documents. One’s identity is accurately verified with a modern facial recognition algorithm, so the process consists of taking photos, recording videos and speech, and making facial gestures.

After passing the biometric identification process, every user then gets a Humaniq wallet that requires gestures similar to those used in the bio-identification procedure to unlock and use. The wallet comes with free coins, and it is also possible for users to earn additional coins by either inviting friends or making transactions.

Creating new possibilities

Since Humaniq works with a biometric identification process, all a user really needs to be awarded free coins is a smartphone with a microphone and a front-facing camera. This piece of hardware costs around $10-$15, an investment users can quickly regain after getting their coins.

Humaniq is then going to give users access to financial services such as loans, credit, and insurance. Giving over 2 billion people access to small cash supplies and these financial services is going to significantly improve living standards throughout the world, especially in emerging economies.

Getting to such a huge amount of people is certainly a challenge. In order to do succeed, Humaniq will work with local companies and brands, ultimately becoming the de facto currency in emerging economies.

As most currencies, Humaniq will reward early adopters with a little extra amount of money. The project’s creators assert they have enough money to take care of everything, but believe it is fair for everyone to invest in the project and help create a new de facto currency that can unite the world. The ambitious goal is similar to the one Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has, that led him to buy the internet.org domain.

Instead of going with venture capital, the founders decided to go another way. Starting on the 6th of April 2017, there will be an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) that will last 20 days. During the ICO, payment options are limited to the two biggest cryptocurrencies: bitcoin and Ethereum. One ether will buy 1,000 HMQ, plus bonuses.

Up until the 22nd of April, early adopters get bonuses that range from 49.9 to 12.5 percent. If you believe in the project, and in what connecting 2 billion people to the world economy with the use of blockchain-based financial services can do, we encourage you to become an early adopter. The Pre-ICO received 99 BTC and over 3100 ETH, leading to the distribution of 31824818 HMQ tokens.

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Blockchain A Potential Significant Enabler for UK Solar, Says SolarCoin Co-Founder

The blockchain presents the opportunity of becoming a ‘potentially significant enabler’ for U.K. solar, according to SolarCoin co-founder Francois Sonnet.

Speaking ahead of his panel on the future of solar technology at the Managing European Solar Assets event next month in London, he said that Bitcoin’s distributed ledger technology could be utilized across a number of different areas in the U.K. such as operation and management (O&M) and peer-to-peer energy trading, according to a report from Solar Power Portal.

He said that the blockchain can help calculate any form of data, which can include transactions involving solar energy data.

It can be an enabler for O&M in the case of the solar industry, anything which is related to peer-to-peer energy transfers. That’s certainly going to be a very big enabler because the latencies, the fluidity of information is actually much higher than it is from other systems.

Created in January 2014, SolarCoin rewards people for using solar energy. With a supply of coins designed to last 40 years, the aim of the company is to boost solar electricity use worldwide by rewarding the generators of solar electricity. It is thought that it will generate 97,500 terawatt hours of solar electricity, with the network growing as more people claim SolarCoin.

Energy Companies Explore Blockchain

Energy companies are increasingly exploring the potential that the blockchain can present when it comes to energy consumption. Over the last year, alone, there have been several tests undertaken to determine the how effective it can be.

U.K.-based startup Electron created a platform on the Ethereum blockchain, in December, which showed that energy supplier switches could be performed 20 times faster than at present, presenting major cost savings.

Other countries that are exploring the blockchain’s potential are Austria and Germany.

Only last month is was reported that Austria’s biggest regional energy company, Wien Energie, was joining a group of others within the industry to take part in a blockchain pilot with the intention of cutting down costsfor consumers within the sector.

While a survey conducted in November found that German energy companies were outlining how to implement the blockchain to improve services.

Often referred to as the technology that is going to change the way the energy industry functions, as the blockchain is currently doing within the finance sector, it has the potential to fix current energy systems as it aims to meet growing customer expectations.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Australia Post Joins Alibaba to Use Blockchain in Counterfeit Food Crackdown in China

Australia Post has announced partnerships with Alibaba, the world’s largest e-commerce company and Blackmores, a prominent Australian natural health company to explore blockchain technology to curb the rise of counterfeit food sold in China.

The joint endeavor will look to develop a blockchain platform to improve the traceability of food products, with Australia Post being a major exporter of food to China. In recent years, counterfeiters have notably targeted popular Australian export such as beer and wine, honey and cherries, nuts and health supplements, according to an announcement.

Australia Post or AusPost is a wholly government-owned entity based out of Melbourne that is responsible for postal services within Australia and foreign territories.

The blockchain initiative will ‘help guarantee’ genuine food products to arrive in China, according to Bob Black, executive general manager for parcels at AusPost.

Black said:

The initiative will leverage our secure, reliable and fast service to support the authentication of Australian products bound for the Chinese market.

Counterfeiters have proven tricky to combat due to the logistics of fighting fraud in foreign territories, with food fraud underlined among the biggest issues facing the global food industry. The very real plausibility of health risks due to adulteration and tampered food material has led to a loss of trust from consumers and governments, with implications on trade.

As a result, the project will look to develop a blockchain ledger that records an entire supply chain transaction.

“We are delighted Alibaba has invited us to create an innovative platform, which will track food from paddock to plate, strengthening the supply chain,” Black stated.

With an immutable, tamper-proof, time-stamped ledger, participants will be able to ascertain the entirety of the food production and supply process. Suppliers can ascertain the when, how and where their food was grown before tracking its journey through the technology. Up-to-date audits and increased transparency between producers and consumers are also underlined as benefits by AusPost.

In September 2016, Barclays and Wave, an Israeli Fintech startup laid claims to the world’s first global trade supply chain transaction powered by blockchain technology. Butter and cheese worth nearly $100,000 was exported from an Irish agricultural co-operative and a trading company in Seychelles.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Blockchain & Fintech Needs Open Data Access for Development

Canada’s largest securities regulator has stated that open access to data is fundamental to developing fintech solutions like blockchain technology, in a white paper, reports Reuters.

Last November, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) hosted a hackathon, with the aim of discovering innovative FinTech solutions for the finance sector. Its paper was the result of the hackathon.

According to Pat Chaukos, chief of OSC LaunchPad, which is a regulatory sandbox to promote innovative solutions, blockchain can provide answers for problems that companies are experiencing.

Chaukos said:

You need to have the open-access data before you can get to the innovation.

In a bid to further expand the sector between the two nations, regulators in the U.K. and Canada signed an agreement earlier this month. By doing so they have made it easier for FinTech companies to expand into each other’s markets, which resolves the issue of growth.

More, though, needs to be done.

EU Law Set to Shake Things Up

The European Union’s Payment Services Directives 2 (PSD2), which is due to come into effect in early 2018, is expected to bring the change that many financial technology companies are seeking.

The new directive will allow a third party, such as a FinTech company, to access banking data with the customer’s permission, establishing greater confidence to users in the reliability of the services. It would also make signing up for financial services easier.

And yet, while it will help shake up the way banks work with data, some European FinTech firms believe that banks are lobbying against the EU legislation.

Of course, banks want tighter regulation on financial technology firms and their access to customer data for fear that cybercriminals will obtain the information. It is because of this that FinTech companies believe that banks will delay response times to access requests.

Banks and FinTech to Collaborate

But, if banks are to thrive in the face of FinTech it needs to collaborate with the companies to remain relevant. As with anything new, change is slow to take shape, but as Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England said, FinTech brings great promise and risk that need to be understood to realize the benefits.

With access to open data, though, it would improve manual regulatory processes such as how information is collected and analysed, the white paper asserts. Not only that, but it would boost competition and provide concrete benefits for investors too.

Featured image of Tehran from Shutterstock.

Brave Browser Will Reward Users with Ethereum-Based Tokens for Switching on Ads

Brave, a browser that improves browsing speed by eliminating unwanted ads, has announced a new blockchain-based digital advertising platform using an Ethereum-based unit of exchange called the Basic Attention Token (BAT) to support a more efficient, transparent and decentralized Internet advertising marketplace.

BAT will allow publishers, advertisers, and users to connect in an online environment that reduces fraud, privacy violations and “malvertisements” while increasing publisher revenue.

The Brave browser was developed as a solution for web users frustrated with the pervasive advertising that slows data connections and clogs web pages with tracking pixels, scripts and ads. Many users also appreciate the fact that the Brave browser does not track their online activity.

BAT is positioned to reform the ad-tech ecosystem because it can privately monitor and anonymously confirm user intent at the browser level which allows for the development of rich metrics for user attention. The token will also enable users to be rewarded for their engagement.

Speaking to CCN, Brendan Eich, founder, president and CEO of Brave said:

The user deserves a share because their attention is being used up a little bit by ads . We’re working on better advertising that is truly private.

Tokens For User Attention

BAT marks the newest stage in the Brave browser ecosystem. BAT values are based on user attention.

“The BAT is the token for remonetizing the user’s attention, including the user in a fair play system,” said Eich. “That (BAT) is what denominates attention in the sense of user engagement in a way that is not likely to be abused and rewards the users.” Users will opt in to participate in the system.

BAT is what Eich calls an “in-game currency,” a token on top of the Ethereum blockchain. “The game is user browsing Brave,” he said.

Attention is measured as viewed for content and ads only in the browser’s active tab in real time. The attention value for the ad will be calculated based on incremental duration and pixels in view in proportion to relevant content, prior to any direct engagement with the ad.

For placement, ads will be matched with user interests using local machine learning algorithms to judge the content to which the user is paying attention, in the context of tabs, viewability and other variables not available to remote trackers.

The matching will be done privately, on the device only, without any signal out. This means fewer, but more relevant and valuable ads. Several scoring algorithms have been tried with the Brave donation ledger system, which automatically donates an amount proportional to the attention given to a website.

Users To Be Rewarded

When users opt-in to receive advertising, their attention will be privately monitored on-device in the Brave browser, without tracking.

Publishers will be rewarded based on BATs. Users will also receive a share of BATs for participating.

By keeping the data on the device, encrypting the data and shielding the identities of users, BAT validates the users’ data. Such value has been ignored and exploited by the middlemen in the existing industry model, according to Brave.

BATs will be made available for crowdsale in the near future.

A Broken Ecosystem

The Internet advertising ecosystem has become overrun by “middleman” ad exchanges, complex behavioral and cross-device user tracking, and opaque cross-party sharing through data management platforms, according to Eich.

“A host of third-party intermediaries evolved to help millions of publishers fill their ad spaces and make revenue to pay their journalists and writers,” Eich said. “Those intermediaries inevitably opened the door to too many hands taking a cut of the pie.”

As a result, advertisers face poor reporting and targeting. Publishers lose revenue while fraud has increased.

Users have lost their privacy, face growing malware risks, pay high charges to download trackers and ads, and suffer slow speeds. This has driven the adoption of ad blocking software, which is now on over 600 million mobile devices and desktops.

Brave is using what Eich calls and “anti-cloud approach” in being able to trust their browsers. “We believe very strongly that there should be a company aligned with your interests and not operating against your interests,” he said.

“Brave is trying to turn this whole surveillance system inside out,” Eich said. “Users can have their own private Google on their devices, firewalled, so that their data stays on their device.”

The big commercial browsers are owned by companies that want to advertise directly or indirectly, Eich said. Hence, they have a conflict of interest with their users.

“Brave wants to eliminate that conflict,” he said. “We want to tie our destiny entirely to our users’ happiness. With us as not only their ad watcher but possibly their personal data platform that gives them a revenue share.”

Brave provided the following statistics:

• Over the last 12 years, publishers have lost approximately 66% of their revenue.

• In 2016, ad fraud created by Internet bots cost advertisers $7.2 billion, up from $6.3 billion in 2015.

• Up to 50% of the average user’s mobile data is used for ads and trackers, costing up to $23 a month.

• Users face slow page loads and as much as 21% less battery life.

• Google and Facebook, which together claim 73% of digital ad revenue and 99% of all growth, are exacerbating the crisis.

Anonymous Machine Learning

The BAT exchange will be rolled out in phases over the coming months.

Brave already has an anonymized ledger system for making donations and payments to publishers based on user attention. The secure vault uses the ANONIZE algorithm to ensure customer privacy. Brave is already measuring user attention at the browser and distributing donations to the publishers using this system.

A BAT wallet will be integrated with the Brave browser. Verification and transactions will be handled by Brave’s internal ledger system to protect individual user anonymity from advertisers, publishers and third parties. Ad inventory will be valued, and transactions will be calculated from reported data.

The transfer and verification process will be entirely distributed on Ethereum using a state channel scheme with zero knowledge proof protocol for ensuring user privacy. Alternate metrics will be added based on advertiser feedback. This will allow for full user privacy as well as a decentralized audit trail for advertisers, users and publishers to ensure they received correct payments for the advertising delivered through the BAT network.

There is no plan to make the BAT tokens fungible at the present time.

As Brave moves to a fully decentralized micropayment system, other developers will use its free and open source infrastructure to develop their own use cases for BAT, according to Eich.

Brave’s BAT whitepaper can be found here.

Featured image from Brave.