Staking for Refugees

Transcript

no I think some large organizations and of course large non-profits often get into the world show when you're like ah they're not innovating enough they're not doing so much but in this case I think wow they're even doing more than some of the startups they were so it's really great to see uh to see that coming from both both ends next up another U.N based organization uh really looking forward to hearing what all of this has been up to helping refugees around around the world thank you let's go around on Floors thank you I'll figure this one thank you everyone so I feel a bit of pressure because I'm not a tech guy I'm not an innovation guy I'm a humanitarian at heart so I started in the field and before to go into our project because of course we

have something to show and share with you but before to go into the project we thought we would start with a with a small video because some people that I talked to during here don't even know who or what you in HR is and does so we thought okay before to tell you about technology let's bring you a bit in our world the humanitarian world it's a three minutes video it's not going to last long and then we'll go more into the technology part thank you my name is Ryan and I work for unhcr the U.N Refugee agency I want to talk to you about forcibly displaced people around the world but first a hundred million how did we get here by the end of 2021 before the war in Ukraine there were already 89 million

forcibly displaced people globally as many as a decade ago any of the crises today have been going on for years and most people fleeing across borders come from just a few countries like Syria Venezuela Afghanistan South Sudan and Myanmar this year the war in Ukraine has added drastically to these numbers so February over four and a half million people have fled the country so where do refugees find safety World opened their borders so people forced to flee can seek a sign

countries like turkey Colombia Uganda Pakistan Germany and Bangladesh host the largest number of refugees globally this year there has been an outpouring of generosity for refugees from Ukraine who have found safety in neighboring countries across Europe and Beyond but people forcibly do not always cross borders these are internally displaced people or in short idps by the end of 2021 53 million people around the world have been displaced by conflict in their own countries some of the largest IDP populations are in Syria Colombia DRC Yemen Ethiopia Afghanistan and Burkina

Faso laughs behind all these numbers are stories of people who have lost so much but also resilience and compassion a hundred million is not just a number it is families friends and loved ones it is a devastating milestone but it is not a refugee crisis it's a political crisis it's a failure of the humanity to prioritize peace and stability but it is also a challenge to everyone what can you do to help people forcibly find out how you can volunteer to help displace people near you donate

help responds for displaced people around the world subscribe to our channel to stay informed encourage your leaders more for displaced people and boost support for the countries and communities that host them and most of all advocate for a more lasting solutions to displacement and make peace a priority [Music] well thank you so it's kind of out of tune with the rest of the discussions today and yesterday so let's connect a bit to both both of the worlds we are Switzerland for unhcr so not really unhcr with the Swiss partner for unhcr and this is why

we are presenting you today is because by being a Swiss part by being a national partner we have more flexibility agility and this is how we could enter blockchain through a project that I'm gonna present you and that we have with the cardano community so fgs taking for refugees this is the name of our project so just before to go directly into this I just want to to to to to go back a little bit to this to this uh this doubling of people forced to flee in the world has created a huge challenge for us because obviously the funds or the the our budget did not double in 10 years just as this number did so of course we

had two a little bit reinvent ourselves because traditionally we've been we are funded by governments for 90 plus percent of our of our of our budget but this is not enough and governments they have their own agendas and they want to choose which country or or which program and then we we thought okay we we need to go out there and look Beyond and we started entering into partnership with the private sector and this is where I think that our blockchain projects uh started we are not as advanced as our colleague from UNICEF and I learned a lot from from you guys I kind of envy you a bit because it's like this is maybe where we will be in a few years but I'm going to show you where we started and we're quite proud of where we where we are today

so what is the project I'm gonna show you today let's uh it's a stake pool we work with the cardano community to launch a charity stake pool so last year in the cardano summit for those of you who know so it was in in November last November we launched we I showed the same video to to bigger audience and we launched early 2023 this uh charity staple how does a cherry how does a stake pool uh what is a staple I think most of you know it but just for those of you who might not know it the validation protocol of the blockchain in our case Cardinal uses stick pools to validate transaction

transactions and rewards are there are then given to the validators it's called staking in this case in our case this taking is going to us is going to unhcr for real programs eighty percent go for the most urgent needs this is the underfunded crisis and 20 go for unhcr innovation so all in all I would say this is in the in between philanthropy because people will not get the rewards that they will accept will go for a for another cause so now we have about well this was a few days ago so of course we have about 200

delegators for 4.3 now it's probably closer to 5 million Ada so I didn't check the last exchange rate but more or less 1.5 uh 1.8 million USD and we get a 3.8 percent uh reward out of it so basically this is this money that got created through the stake pool mechanism that goes into a humanitarian purpose why cardano because we have as a un entity to follow some sdg so sustainable development goals and of course we rather went for proof of stake which is uh less energy consuming as you all know they are based in Switzerland and as

well what we thought was super interesting for us was the strength of the community the community is a is a place in the men's role and they're really helping us develop this because by ourselves we could not do it so what does that mean growing with the community I give you two examples here oh well three examples to be to be honest the first one we we partnered with uh Paris uh blockchain week we partnered with consensus in Texas as well so the proof of attendance for both these conferences uh was the the two nfts that you could see that are turning the yellow one is a representation of Yemen so you can see uh it's the shape of Yemen the second

one is the city of Kiev in Ukraine and basically uh people voluntarily contributed by purchasing this nft this was their proof of attendance got quite a big success and it was all pro bono because we found partners that were ready to create the nft uh that uh that minted that found the minting solution for us and basically we didn't really have to invest into this so this was a partnership that was kind of a win-win with interested partners then we have for example house key that you see here uh I didn't know husky before but basically what they what they do they they engage the rest of the community they're going to say okay

we're not going to delegate to your staking pool this is not what we're gonna do but for everybody that give that will delegate we will offer a free token so basically it doesn't cost them a large investment as such if I may say so but they're in in creating an unexpected incentive that can motivate people to participate then we have as well cardano over coffee this is so this interview Twitter space Community meetups etc etc so the next thing we're going to do we on 20th of June we have the world Refugee day so it's not a unhcr day it's a world Refugee day every 20th of June

and we're going to release the kind of hoofs with cardano community so this is one of the most successful nft projects on cardano for those who don't know and they decided to create an exclusive collection for us so you can see that they are Tailor-Made in a way with kind of our usual uh brand I would say and they will be sold on world Refugee day so first if you're interested to kind of get these exclusives feel free and of course in the secondary Market if they're resold it's going to to us for the I mean portion of it to the it's going to be kind of a recurring Revenue so maybe just a word why Switzerland uh I was going to stay with this one so why

did we do this in Switzerland maybe this is interesting because we're we work in 130 countries but we started doing it here because of course the legislation isn't it is is good for this but as well it's kind of a mecca for philanthropy you have a lot of foundation you have a people a lot of people with a philanthropic mindset and philanthropic interest and as well you have a lot of wealth let's let's call it Cathy cat as we say in French so our idea as well for our next goal would be to to develop a bit this this philanthropy and web3 to connect both we know it's not so much of a topic or I would say it's a niche topic and I think we should really and I'm looking as well at the other presenters here we made the

Plastics Impact scope UNICEF I think at the end it's not so much that we are competing it's more that we are together wanting to have this web free and philanthropy kind of talking more to each other finding how to contribute to each other and this can really be I think beneficial of course for us but as well for for the whole blockchain industry at Large um next for us of course we want to keep growing we are working with cardano for a year in until January 2024 at least and then they will have another project but as I was saying we want to create a bridge

with the philanthropy community and we are looking this is my big announcement of the day no not really but we are looking as well for wealth uh for generous whales that could be interested to discuss with me with my colleague Rafa right here taking a picture afterwards but you know even just a connection or something at the end and we're not here to to to to to to to Really uh ask anything more than just your opening you being open to well you know connection between two worlds and uh and I think this is it I think I'm right on time any question [Applause]