Mainframe Donates Over 1000 ETH to Non-Profits
As a follow-up to our 1000 ETH donation to Freedom of the Press, we’re excited to unveil our full wave of Proof of Heart recipients. These are seven stellar organizations doing remarkable work, and we’re delighted to support them. Independent of the donations, we also plan to collaborate with a number of them on future projects. They are:
USB sticks are actually fairly common in North Korea, with a large percentage of citizens either owning one or knowing someone who owns one. So the Human Rights Foundation came up with Flash Drives for Freedom, an ingenious way of challenging state propaganda by exposing North Korean people to content from the outside world via flash drives sent in through markets and networks on the Chinese border. Content includes South Korean soap operas, Hollywood films, Korean-language versions of Wikipedia, footage of supermarkets and libraries, and interviews with defectors. Forced to live in isolation, this new information can liberate people’s minds. To date, approximately 120,000 flash drives have been donated or pledged. By the end of 2018, an estimated 1.1. million North Koreans will have come into contact with these drives, containing approximately 48 million hours of reading material and 2 million hours of video footage.
We look forward to collaborating with the Human Rights Foundation on this program, along with other initiatives in an ongoing partnership. This includes participation at future Oslo Freedom Forum events, and involvement with their Blockchain and Civil Liberties series of interactive workshops, about blockchain technology and its impact on the civil liberties space.
Access Now is on the front lines defending and expanding digital rights for people around the world. The breadth and depth of their advocacy work spans across digital security, freedom of expression, privacy, net discrimination, and much more. We’re happy to lend support towards #KeepitOn, a campaign against internet shut downs. We’re also pleased to be their first sponsor for RightsCon 2019, their flagship annual conference, and look forward to speaking there.
Our donation will go to support their current campaigns, as well as go to exploring more ways to combat censorship, surveillance, and data compromise. We look forward to working alongside them in various ways as we fine tune our technology to work optimally for situations that require utmost privacy and security.
Video is evidence. Witness leverages technology as advocacy, to “witness” human rights violations. They coordinate with local groups and citizens, conduct trainings, and provide resources so people are empowered with tools to expose abuses and injustice to the world. Thru education and awareness, they widen the net of protection and defense of human rights. They’ve trained over 7,000 people across 108 countries, reaching 1 million people in the last year with their resources.
They also engage with technology companies to create new tools to promote their values, and we’re excited to now be one of them. We plan to work closely with their team to implement features, fine tune, and solve for their specific use cases.
Reporters Without Borders are relentless warriors in the fight for freedom of information. With nearly half the world lacking access to freely reported news and information, their leadership and work remains sorely needed. They are famous for bold advocacy. For example, in 2008, they disrupted the Beijing Olympics to raise awareness about journalists jailed in China. They’re internationally recognized for effective and thorough work that spans the globe. We will be exploring tech collaboration, as part of Mainframe’s pursuit to provide reliable tools to those who need surveillance- and censorship-resistant channels to carry out sensitive work.
Index on Censorship defends and promotes freedom of expression around the world. They raise awareness and run focused advocacy campaigns on threats to free speech, publish an award-winning quarterly magazine, host debates and other events in honor of free expression, and support individuals and groups who face censorship. Honoring free expression is core to Mainframe, and we look forward to supporting all these efforts. We will also sponsor a Freedom of Expression Award Fellowship, and plan to work with them in the future in joint efforts to combat censorship.
We want all of crypto to survive and thrive. Coincenter is hard at work making sure that happens. Our contribution will go to support their ongoing efforts to educate policymakers and media, research regulatory approaches that make sense for all parties, and overall advocacy for clarity and solutions that allow cryptocurrency networks to innovate and impact the world the way we know they can. These are thorny and complicated issues from a regulatory standpoint, and Coincenter is working to ensure policy makers understand what’s at stake and don’t stifle this nascent industry with onerous and unnecessary red tape.
As a leading voice on civil liberties in the digital world, the Electronic Frontier Foundation was always going to be a recipient. They are widely recognized as a foremost force in the fight for privacy and digital rights. Like us, they recognize the potential of technology to promote freedom, and the importance of protecting its access and availability. They advise policymakers, educate the press and public about these critical issues, and work with partners, activists, lawyers, and other concerned parties to promote online rights for all. We’re privileged to be able to support them and the broader cause.
This has all been made possible by you — the generous Mainframe community, who have put your money where your mouth is to support these values-aligned organizations fighting for freedom, online and off. This means a lot to them, and it means a lot to us.
