MIT Team Wins $5K Fusion Sponsor Prize at 2018 MIT Bitcoin Expo Hackathon
On March 17, 2018, Team SmartRaise won the $5K Fusion Sponsor Prize at the 2018 MIT Hackathon for their philanthropic SmartRaise idea. The team comprised of 4 members, which include William Lopez-Cordero, the co-founder of the SmartRaise Organization, Yusef Nathanson and Francisco, blockchain enthusiasts, and Samarth Sandeep, a freshman at UC Davis. The SmartRaise hackathon project allows any trusted organization to raise funds from a global market of cryptocurrency holders. Donors receive a tax-deductible token, called Eleos-721, to assist in tax record-keeping and to show appreciation for donating towards a charitable cause.
What is SmartRaise?
The SmartRaise Organization wants to leverage the power of blockchain technology to create an online decentralized fundraising platform capable of legitimizing and streamlining the fundraising process. The core SmartRaise team consists of three MIT students, William Lopez-Cordero, a senior in Aerospace Engineering currently interning at Lockheed Martin, Kevin Escobar Rodriguez, a senior in computer science currently interning at Lyft, and Isak Romero, a sophomore in computer science and mathematics currently interning at Facebook. SmartRaise was first conceived as a web application for the MIT web development competition. After receiving $1K in funding from the MIT Sandbox Program, the team decided to start implementing blockchain technology into the idea.
The idea was first conceived when Isak Romero was taking part in the MIT Association of Puerto Rican students fundraiser to help relief the damage that Hurricane Maria had done to the island. Despite a successful fundraiser, the organization had to search for weeks in order to find a suitable charity to donate to. Sending the funds was a struggle due to the current situation of the island. It was here that Isak was struck with the idea that there needs to be a simpler way to help such nonprofit organizations and fundraisers connect with each other in order to streamline the process.
A couple of weeks later while talking to some members of his fraternity about blockchain technology and cryptocurrency, the idea began to take form. What if there was a decentralized platform where any individual or organization who wanted to raise funds for charity could make an account and instantly be verified. An platform that made it such that once its users had money deposited into their accounts, the money could only be moved forward into a trusted charity organization as easily as pressing a button. Not only would this allow anyone to easily host a legitimate fundraising campaign, but it would also allow them to find an organization that would put the raised money to good use. That’s when SmartRaise was formed to help alleviate problems with current fundraising techniques and provide an easy-to-use platform for both the organizations and the donors.
Next Steps
The SmartRaise Organization is currently working on the platform that will hope to revolutionize fundraising for everyone by building trust and transparency for the organization and the donors. The next steps for the SmartRaise Organization is to market test with real nonprofit organizations to handle real-money donations and continue building on the SmartRaise platform to ensure that donors and organizations comply with current regulations.
Contact Us
To know more about the mission of the SmartRaise Organization or if you’re interested in contributing to the SmartRaise platform, please email smartraise@mit.edu.
