LIVE TELOS’ AMA #3
Telos Feed-How Telos can help Developing Countries
Andreina Chirinos PR manager at Telos Feed
English/Spanish
Third #TelosTuesday live AMA!
Andreina Chirinos PR manager at Telos Feed was the host of the third AMA. She and the Telos Feed Team have been working for over 9 months with Telos Network, their goal is to build an engaged online community across different platforms, creating digital footprints in social media and expose Telos as an incredible blockchain for the present and the future.
In this special AMA, she wanted to talk about how blockchain technology, such as Telos, can help rise a developing country, for example, Venezuela. First, she stated that it is important to understand what a developing country is and then explain how blockchain can help.
A developing country
Every country is different and each faces unique challenges, this is why this AMA focused on Venezuela’s case. The Telos Feed team is from Venezuela, and they wanted to share with the audience how the situation of the country really is and how blockchain can actually help.
Andreina stated that living in a developing country doesn’t mean that the people are living in the prehistoric times. Venezuela, as many other developing countries, has a modern way of life, it has modern cities, universities, malls, computers, cars,technology among many other things. She said that many people believe that it is a waste of time teaching blockchain in Venezuela because “they don’t even know how to use a computer” but they just couldn’t be more wrong. Let’s explain the concept of a developing country.
The terms developed and developing countries are recent; before, they were identified as First World and Third World Countries. These terms come from the cold war, where First World Countries were the US, Western Europe and their allies. The Second World were Soviet Union, China, Cuba and allies, and the Third World were the rest of the countries. Since many of the so called Third World Countries were poor , whereas the First World Countries were the advanced strong economies of the time, these terms continued to be used to indicate the progress of them, but this failed because it only took into consideration the wealth of a country, and being a wealthy country doesn’t mean you are developed.
Today, additionally from the GDP or gross domestic product per capita of a country, it is also considered the HDI, which is the health development index. The HDI index is significant because it measures health, education and life standard. This reflects how human welfare and individual rights have become a fundamental part of what being a developed country means.
To know if a country is developed, it must be above certain standards per capita, GDP and HDI. A country to be developed must meet both requirements. It is essential to understand that a country that is considered developed does not mean that it has no issues, no poverty or that it has no room for improvement, it just means that it is above established standards.
Now that we know the theory of how countries are labeled, let’s start with which are the challenges developing countries encounter.
Challenges of developing countries
Each country is unique, they have different backgrounds, societies, needs, but developing countries deal with similar challenges, or at least around the same areas.The main areas where these countries face challenges are:
- Poverty
- Health
- Safety
- Education
- Corruption at all government levels and other institutions.
The improvement of most of these areas is affected by corrupcion, and it is an everyday challenge. These corrupt governments, most of the time stay in power and keep countries in the shadows, taking advantage of the people and keeping everything for themselves. But, how can blockchain help?
How blockchain technology can help developing countries
Fights Against Corruption Financial Systems
It all starts by making all levels of governments accountable for their acts, and forcing them to do so by registering their actions, and only blockchain can activate the immutable shared registry. There is no way of tampering with this information on the chain without leaving a trace. This would cut down corruption among a regime. With lower corruption levels, public funds would be distributed where they are supposed to go, improving the overall life quality. Let’s keep in mind that this would be a complex project, probably something that would take years to deploy and improve.
This registry can also apply to other institutions, such as, universities. There are many cases in Venezuela of people forging university degrees or buying their way into admission to a course. By having everything registered in blockchain, all these scams would be exposed and whoever is performing them cannot escape, being held accountable for his/her actions.
The same goes for public health. Private healthcare is expensive, but the public health care system, besides being nearly destroyed, is very corrupted, governments don’t assign the corresponding funds to operate, and many people who need the care are not receiving it.
Prevails Over Inflation
There are other more immediate ways blockchain can help, for example, people can save money by having their assets on blockchain, in the case of Venezuela many people have been doing it for a long time using Bitcoin. In crashed economies, cryptocurrencies are a feasible way of managing the assets and protecting them from being dissipated by hyperinflation.
Ease of sending and receiving money from overseas reducing remittance cost
It is also an easy way for families living abroad to help their loved ones still in those countries, to send remittances and reduce the costs per transaction. The most common way in Venezuela to change Bitcoin (BTC) to Bolivares (local currency) is through https://localbitcoins.com/ , a P2P marketplace. Venezuelans traded 305 million $ through LocalBTC during 2019, this accounts for 18% of the total traffic of this marketplace, followed by the US, with 9%, this means that during 2019, Venezuela was the country that most used this platform, and by far. This is not a sign of growth, this is a sign of a dead economy and people trying to survive through it.
Implementation of alternative payment platforms
Another way blockchain can help overcome the decaying Bolivar is by developing and adopting token and cryptocurrency payment platforms. Many establishments are accepting mainly BTC and Ether as payment, but there are people using other cryptocurrencies, for example, the TeamEOSElTigre where they sell goods among themselves and pay with EOS and TLOS.
Job Opportunities
Blockchain Technology provides opportunities for people from developing countries to work and make a living. Which is the case of the Telos Network, it had several Block producers from Venezuela working hard to maintain the network and also, a Venezuelan marketing team,the Telos Feed.
This is just a quick summary of a complex subject and how a technology like blockchain can help. There is so much these countries can do with this technology!
