we began talking to humanitarians and impact investors across the globe, while simultaneously reaching out to technologists inside and outside of ConsenSys. Together we laid the foundation for a coalition united by a single goal: To research, fund, create, and deploy sustainable (and adaptable) blockchain solutions to address humanitarian crises across the globe. To explicitly state it, we now have all three parties necessary to achieve this. On Tuesday, May 16th, more than 30 people representing 22 organizations, came together to launch the Blockchain for Social Impact Coalition (BSIC) was officially launched.
Not involved, but have been following it - and humanitarian blockchain
projects specifically - with some interest. There are reasonable arguments
for decentralised data where there’s no trusted party, as there often isn’t
in contested and politically messy contexts, but at the same time there’s
no question that the hype cycle around blockchain is driving some
poorly-justified projects. As Dave Birch would say, what’s in the blocks?
who can access them and how, and are blocks the right place for that info?
Also interesting ethical questions about tech maturity and when it’s
appropriate and ready for use, in contexts where potentially life-critical
information may be stored/lost/leaked as well as powerful new benefits
possible…
Second what Laura said - I’ve seen a number of “BlockChain for good” presentations, and there weren’t that I saw where the Blockchain added anything that wasn’t available much more simply & cheaply with strong crypto and decentralized storage. I worked on humanitarian technology for a long time, and its rarely the technical (IT) factors that are the limiting ones, almost always the human factors as Laura says “What’s in the blocks, who can access” and so on. A smart contract doesnt help with trust unless you also trust how its going to be triggered i.e. what real-world input is required to trigger the digital outcome. .