3 amazing Positive Blockchain projects to inspire participants to the Blockchain Agora in Paris (15/11)

There are countless emerging applications in the area of “blockchain for good”, and even at PositiveBlockchain.io, it is difficult to keep track! You can go and browse some 600 projects using Blockchain for positive social and environmental impact.

Here are three hand-picked examples on how the technology is already successfully applied for good:

• Mobilized Construction, Decentralized micro PPPs to Build Africa’s Roads

This startup is working to improve the quality of road infrastructure in Kenya and Uganda. It is estimated that 6.5 million km of roads are unpaved in the world, and that more than one trillion dollars is needed to finance all infrastructure works.

How to solve this challenge? Mobilized Construction collects road infrastructure data in real time using sensors placed on public vehicles (buses, taxis, ambulances), to identify where the road needs critical repairs. It automatically generates micro-contracts via the blockchain so that local communities can directly repair the damaged roads .

Local governments can create micro-PPPs (Public-Private-Partnerships) by organizing repair work in a decentralized and partly automated way. The quality of the repairs carried out is directly evaluated by the beneficiaries and users of the road via an independent application. Such projects allow farmers, for example, to reach trade areas faster for their crops and to earn more money.

For example, the Kiarutara pilot project in Kenya in 2017 affected 17 workers in a field of cultivation that produces about 2000 kg of tea and 1000 liters of milk a day. Improving the road to the market has increased transportation capacity and reduced taxi costs by more than 40%.

• Etherisc, the blockchain platform for micro-insurance

Etherisc is a start-up that wants to disrupt the insurance market by allowing any organization to develop and distribute its own insurance product via the Etherisc blockchain platform.

The project was born from the meeting in 2016 of two founders Christoph and Stephan who saw in the blockchain a fabulous tool to make insurance more effective, affordable and transparent. Demo products have already been designed for insurance areas such as aircraft delays or social insurance.

The project also offers the potential to impact the billions of people who do not yet have access to insurance or “micro-insurance” products. The insurance penetration rate in Africa, for example, is only 1.3%. Moreover, and according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the natural disasters that occurred between 2005 and 2015 resulted in agricultural and animal losses of around $ 96 billion in developing countries. development.

For the great majority, these losses are absorbed by poor families and farmers, who are often neglected by traditional insurance companies because of their precarious and fragmented situation. Millions of poor farmers around the world are and will increasingly be at the mercy of global warming.

Which solution brings the blockchain? The operation is as follows:

• the insurer defines a risk profile as in any insurance
• It defines the amount of premiums and the cost of insurance
• Premiums are blocked on a smart contract on the Ethereum public blockchain
• They are automatically paid to the insured if the pre-defined conditions of the contract are met which is relatively easy to automate in the context of parametric insurance: the smart contract is validated by an “oracle”, a computer program that analyzes the airport API data as part of the aircraft delay, or the data of wind speed sensors or temperatures.
• No reporting procedure is necessary and the whole process is completely transparent.
• Humaniq, delivering financial inclusion solutions for the unbanked

The Humaniq team is building a next generation model for financial services (Banking 4.0) which is based on Blockchain technology, mobile devices and biometric identification systems. They started in 2016 and raised $5 million in a public token sale.

What’s the current situation in their market? 2 billion people who don’t have access to banking in the world. And this is the market Humaniq is addressing, focusing on mobile technologies and markets in Africa, Asia and South America.

The aim is to provide simple software solution (mobile App) but also bring mobile hardware (phones) into the markets Humaniq is aiming for. Current crypto solutions have a lot of problems to address such markets such as the low cryptocurrency liquidity in local poor markets, lack of exchanges, risks of anonymity for financial services, usage complexity for network participants, proof-of-work consensus mechanisms behind today’s main cryptocurrencies, etc. Humaniq’s whitepaper details interesting solutions they came up with.

Exactly one year after the first App version release (Nov. 2017), Humaniq published an insightful activity report and their numbers speak for themselves: 500,000 registered users, in 46 countries where the wallet is available, 3 languages for the interface, more than 60 million messages between sent by the users, 28 ambassadors and 13 partners. The app now contains many features developed specifically to provide the users with all the tools they need: fully-fledged chats with direct payment features, internal support channels and AI help bots, Business Chats for selling real life goods, an educational channel within the App, and the upcoming LocalHumaniqs P2P exchange.

Big shout out for the team and their impact up to now. We will be looking at their evolution and especially the details of their social impact.

Want to learn more?

A list of articles, organizations and useful links is available on the resources page of PositiveBlockchain. PositiveBlockchain is the open-source database, media platform and community exploring the potential of blockchain technologies for social and environmental impact.

The database currently lists more about 600 projects and startups that you can explore now on the website!

Your next step?

Join the Blockchain Agora in Paris on the 15/11 and get the opportunity to interact with inspiring speakers, practitioners and entrepreneurs. What is awaiting you?

• 40 speakers
• 300 participants
• 10 workshops
• 1 social impact startups contest
• 1 speed meetings session
• 1 poster session (presentation of R&D projects)
• 5 networking moments
• 1000 coffees and drinks

You have a Positive Impact Blockchain project/startup?

Apply here to pitch during the day.