Blockchain x Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

cliBlockchain is most renowned as the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. And while cryptocurrencies are already disrupting financial systems and creating seismic shifts in our economies, there’s an important part of the story that’s missing from the mainstream narrative, especially in Japan. And that is: How can blockchain technology be leveraged to solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental problems? And that’s exactly why we, Social Innovation Japan, organised Japan’s first-ever summit focused on Blockchain x Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals are a set…

Can Blockchain Help Feed the Hungry?

In the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan, Syrian refugees queue in supermarkets where cashiers are equipped with iris scanners. Once identified using biometric registration data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they can spend food vouchers provided by the UN World Food Program (WFP). Food voucher transactions for 100,000 refugees in Jordan are now recorded on the WFP’s Ethereum-based blockchain, a system called Building Blocks. By the end of 2018, WFP’s Director of Innovation and Change Management Robert Opp hopes that Building Blocks will serve 500,000 people — WFP’s…