 Good afternoon. Hello everybody. Welcome to Building blockchain products for UNICEF how to get involved My name is Shane O'Connor and I am an innovation manager with UNICEF's office of innovation Which is based in Stockholm in Sweden But I'm very happy to be here at DevCon with you guys Probably a lot of you know UNICEF as an organization you know you've heard of us You know what we do Maybe it's not so clear exactly Why and how we work with blockchain and technologies in general So UNICEF's mandate is really to advocate for children's rights To try and make sure that they achieve the best outcomes And make sure that their health education protection is Maximized across the world and UNICEF operates in about 190 countries around the world But UNICEF also has an office of innovation and within that office of innovation We have a ventures team and we have a special team called giga and we'll be hearing from them a little while So actually UNICEF has been working with blockchain since are looking at blockchain since about 2014 2015 And UNICEF is one of the larger UN organizations. So big bureaucratic Sometimes slow to move So it takes us a long time to try and get UNICEF to move In this type of space and to get us up to speed On how to properly use the technology that's out there In the real world to support UNICEF's programming Um My own team that I work with the venture fund We have been providing Kind of seed funding To support what we call frontier technology solutions that benefit children and the world and we have some people from a few of the Companies that have benefited from that here in the room today But really from the slide there you'll see we're looking at the intersection of The needs of 1 billion people and 100 billion dollar industries. So we look at AI Drones 3d printing machine learning and also blockchain and cryptocurrency We've actually gone through three rounds of blockchain funding cohorts We did our first cohort in about 2018 Which was a more of a kind of a thematic Call for submissions and you'll see that we had Submissions from supply chain solutions digital certificates and badges impact investing We did a second cohort back in 2020, which was more focused on financial inclusion Um and and that kind of particular not not so thematic but more focused um And some of the kind of products platforms and companies that came into that cohort were focused on humanitarian cash transfers remittances and decentralized decision-making tools We have a cohort that is about to be announced in the next one month or so And this is some of the our third cohort around blockchain. Um, and you can see some of the um kind of solutions and companies that have been involved there and Yeah, I think we'll hopefully people can see those coming out pretty soon. Thanks one And this is really exciting and sanna is going to be giving a talk later on at about 540 on the the crypto fund. So I won't take too much of her thunder here but in 2019 unicef launched Crypto fund and we were in fact the first un agency To be able to receive hold and disperse cryptocurrency So this is a a big big thing for the un And certainly a big big thing for unicef And this has really been able to help us to build digital solutions and particularly digital public goods To help us ensure a kind of equitable access to these technologies and these tools to really try and support human development obviously through the lens of unicef's focus unicef's mandate on supporting children One of the new applications again new for unicef new for un and using blockchain is cash-based transfers both kind of in a development context supporting social protection schemes, but also Possibly more interesting in humanitarian situations. So responding to disasters Trying to get funding funds out to communities who have been affected And we're actually at the moment looking at blockchain for cash transfer and we're in fact I don't know if they're here in the room yet, but we do have another cohort graduate that is supporting us room sand from Nepal and but using blockchain for cash transfer to really increase transparency of these processes so everyone can see the Movement of the funds all the way to the beneficiary and this is interesting for us as a un agency, but also particularly interesting. I think to donors too and of course saving costs compared to the traditional aspects for this and this particular space Unicef is also looking currently we're using blockchain to support the The cash transfer programming. It's not Cryptocurrency at the moment. It does get converted to fiat, but we are hopefully looking at using pure crypto cash transfers Early in 2023. I think that's what we're looking at So my name is herman. I lead the blockchain work for giga at unicef Giga is kind of like operates as a little startup within the office of innovation at unicef Um, we were started. We started in 2019 And we're sort of a joint venture between unicef and the itu the international telecommunications union And our goal is to connect all the world schools to the internet by the year 2030 So we have quite a lot of work to do And we operate along sort of three pillars of work. The first pillar is mapping Believe it or not. We actually don't know where all the schools in the world are So we're using machine learning algorithms to Analyze satellite data and identify schools and actually help governments find all the schools in their country So that's always an interesting conversation with the ministry of education um The second pillar is about financing. So we estimate that it's going to cost approximately $428 billion to connect all the world schools to the internet, which is quite a lot of money. So we're really investigating uh like innovative financing models to Find sustainable ways to to make this happen. So There's two types of expenses that We have to we have to solve for the first one is obviously sort of capital expenses, you know, putting fiber in the ground Putting putting towers up that sort of thing But the second is, you know, once you connect to school, you have to pay for ongoing internet connectivity You all sort of have subscriptions to that. That's kind of like how it works. You have to pay your bills. Otherwise you get disconnected So we've got a team sort of focusing on on making that happen Um, and the third pillar is about actually connecting. So we uh operate a team called the accelerate team where We work with governments to investigate different kinds of business models for different kinds of scenarios, you know Schools in urban areas need a different solution than schools in super rural areas So we work with governments to try to figure that out and advise them on sort of the best way to go Um, so that they at some point can take over the financing and the rollouts of these programs and do it sustainably So like I said, uh, we launched in 2019. Our goal is to connect all the world schools by 2030 So far, we were joined by 19 countries. Um, we have connected 5,300 schools We've mapped about 1.1 million out of an estimate at 6.5. So there's still like quite a lot of work to do Um, and we were super happy to be joined by 14 partners that support us including ericsson, dubai cares musk foundation Uh del recently joined, which is a really big deal Um, and we've raised about 210 million dollars, uh towards this goal So as you can see, we're still quite far off from the 4 and 28 billion required Um, so I'm gonna talk also today a little bit about some of the projects and the products that we're developing at giga um So the first one is what we call giga counts, which is like a accounting platform and a sort of monitoring platform For the people who uh are actually controlling the money to pay for school internet connectivity So the way it usually happens is that um a country government or A unicef country office will write out a contract for like 100 schools or 1000 schools in the country, uh And have very little tools to be able to actually monitor whether this uh internet service is delivered So what we're developing is a way for them to make it super easy to monitor that so we um, we have our own sort of real-time data Application that schools can install on their on their networks and reports data back to us so that If data is subpar or connections get disconnected We can actually hold uh internet service providers accountable. So that's that's our thing and what we're hoping to go with this is um Right now the tool is really sort of to support support these people in their in their in their work But what would be really cool is to actually uh connect this with smart contracts and Monitor whether internet quality is delivered and if it is automatically pay internet service providers So that becomes super easy for people to uh to connect schools and to to get paid for that um, the second product we're working on is uh called connectivity credits it's kind of um Kind of similar to the carbon credit market. So we're building a global uh marketplace for uh connectivity To make The con the connection of schools sort of more equitable So what's currently the case in the free market is that schools in rural areas get connected and the ones in urban In urban areas don't or if you're a school in the rainforest An internet service provider isn't gonna like lay a fiber optics cable there So what we're doing is we're um Providing a marketplace where we put tokens on these difficult to connect schools And allow internet service providers to redeem these tokens for benefits from the government like for example tax breaks or special deals when uh bidding for uh spectrum uh That bends with that that sort of thing So that's currently in progress in in Botswana and we're looking for other countries to to implement this Um another area that we're investigating uh is nfts. So we've launched uh in the beginning of this year, uh the first uh first The largest I could say the largest sort of collection within the un uh For this called patchwork kingdoms It's based on all the school data that we have so for these 1.1 million map schools that we have We worked with a data uh artist data analytics artist to create these 1000 unique art pieces And raise funds for giga. So, uh, we we sold all of them raised about 700, uh 1000 us dollars for that Which is really cool and um Looking to sort of build upon that uh with our follow-up collection currently title in progress called nft 2 Where we're basically uh looking to build the world's most comprehensive decentralized database of school data So the idea will be to um create an nft for every single school in the world um Give this nft for uh to the schools themselves to own uh and give them the ability Together with their communities to uh edit the data for their school keep it up to date Uh and and own this data themselves. So Right now it's sort of On our cloud server in frankfurt, uh, sort of locked up And for for us to use but it'd be really cool if schools own their own data So that's where we're hoping to go with that. So we're looking to use nfts as a sort of A portal into into making that happen And the last uh projects that were uh actually, uh, really keen to talk about uh at this event It's like we're finally allowed to talk about this in public, which is really cool Is a staking experiment that we've been running uh in rwanda. So um, we've been working uh with the ethereum foundation and the the government of rwanda Um to create an impact investing product using ethereum staking to pay for school connectivity So that's um currently live and uh, we'll also be talking about that more in the panel discussion on thursday if people are interested I think that's it and then I'll hand over. Oh, there's one more So, I mean rome wasn't built in a day. Uh, and these products aren't either. Uh, we're still, you know, iterating on these Uh, so we're asking you guys, uh, do you want to help us build? Um, so Antonio conterres, um, yeah Mentioned us at the at the previous sort of, uh, general assembly. So There's really sort of been a global call now for governments to step up and uh, and and and help with this Help with this calls To to finish with the with the talk before we go into uh, breaking sessions is that We we cannot do this alone. We are relatively a fairly small team Compared to all the things that we do and all the products that we are building So we work with companies with people on different ways One one it's that we have a tech team an internal tech team of product product managers that the scientists and software developers And we are continuously sourcing for that. So if you are interested in joining our team Keep an eye in our website because you have different jobs that go out there At the moment we have one for a blockchain developer that's open. I think it's going to be open for Another week, uh, or so. So if yeah, if either you are interested, you know, anyone that might be interested Please spread the word. There will be another one for a blockchain product manager role as well that will be coming out soon And others will keep coming out. So definitely keep an eye on that and and apply We also especially for blockchain work because many of the things that her been was presenting are so new And they are experiments and prototypes that we are building We work with external companies and with vendors to to build them and then we take them and we Scale them internally, but we first work with companies to to build them So again, if you are a company that's working in the blockchain space either on the nft space staking tokens And and others and you are interested in working with us. There will be again few calls For companies to apply to help us build the the things that her been was presenting. So there will be One call To help us build this nft 2 that doesn't have an end yet So we'll be working with a company to to build that The same for the accounting platform that he presented gig accounts We have a working prototype at the moment We'll again be looking for a company to help us Build the next version of that and test it pilot it in a couple of countries So again, if you are in that space of smart contracts, uh, etc Feel free to apply and then the last one that will also shortly be coming out. It's on the connectivity credits We are building that at the moment in Botswana But looking to pilot it in a couple of other countries So there will be another call looking for companies to build that a token marketplace for for connectivity and then Yeah, I think those are the the main calls that will be coming out Of course, then we also work with uh companies as partners. So not so much Contracting them, but we work with companies like they'll the mask fund. Well, that's not a company But the mask foundation Ericsson I just ours as partners where These these companies give in kind contributions either funding monetary But also sometimes they give us tech support either through their developers through their team So again, if you're interested in helping out reach out to us And then finally The last one. It's the venture fund. So if you are a startup in the blockchain space There are continuous calls that are coming out for that. There will be one That will go out soon around climate tech solutions. So if again, you are building something on that 20th of october it's coming out So so again, that will be out and it's an investment of 100,000 100,000 dollars more or less Uh with that I would also encourage you to check this QR code so that you can register Like that you can also keep you in the loop And if we have something that we also think that might be relevant to you We can keep you in our network and reach out to you