PolloPollo: The crypto project putting chicken back on the table in Venezuela - Decrypt - Adriana Hamacher:
November 9, 2019 - "In a TV broadcast last month, Venezuelan President Maduro suggested installing hen coops in classrooms to feed the country’s starving children. It’s a measure of the enduring humanitarian crisis that he’s persistently insisted does not exist. And this stance, say aid workers, makes it impossible for international agencies, like UNICEF and the World Food Programme, to airlift and distribute the supplies that Venezuelans so desperately need....
"But a new initiative, PolloPollo, is hoping to put poultry, and other groceries back on the table once again. PolloPollo is using blockchain to deliver on its promise, but also to address questions of transparency and accountability that have been levied against other donation programs....
"It’s not the only one. Further afield, the World Food Programme has also been using DLT [distributed ledger technology] to distribute aid to those who need it most since early last year, and is now both expanding the ground it covers and improving on the technology....
"Casper Niebe, PolloPollo’s founder, told Decrypt [that aid] recipients don’t even need a smartphone. They simply have to register on the platform’s website, and post a request.... When a third party responds to the request and makes a donation on the platform, the person requesting food gets a text message or an email. They then pick up and digitally sign for their supplies from a food retailer or producer nearby. The shop or farm then receives payment for the produce in 'bytes,' the cryptocurrency of the Obyte platform PolloPollo is built on. The final step is when an Obyte representative visits the supplier and converts the cryptocurrency into Venezuelan Bolivars, or another crypto.
"Niebe said that the project was born out of his frustration at the lack of transparency in current aid distribution platforms. Transaction fees and costs eat up around 3.5 percent of the average donation, according to estimates, and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that up to 30 percent of development funds are lost to corruption.... Niebe believes PolloPollo is a better solution, one that offers more accountability. With their digital signature, the aid recipients activate the smart contract that ensures suppliers are paid. And donors are notified via the PolloPollo platform.....
"Since early in 2018, the World Food Programme has been using blockchain to address the food shortages that dog the 106,000 refugees who have fled Syria, and set up temporary homes in Jordan’s camps. 'Currently, we’re exploring the foundational blockchain layer, rather than cryptocurrency,' Houman Haddad, the UN executive behind the project, told Decrypt.
"His initiative, Building Blocks, provides food vouchers for the refugees to redeem in local stores. It uses a 'permissioned' or private version of the Ethereum blockchain, together with iris scanning technology, to manage the data underpinning the delivery of the vouchers. To buy food, a recipient need only go to a participating supermarket, where their iris is scanned and the price of the food they need is deducted from the family’s account....
"Instead of furnishing refugees with crypto, Haddad’s dream is to roll out a more decentralized version of Building Blocks; one that all 40 of the organizations assisting people in the camps can use.... Meanwhile, Building Blocks is expanding to Bangladesh and rolling out a blockchain that Haddad hopes will — eventually — service more than 800,000 Rohinga refugees."
Read more: https://decrypt.co/10972/pollopollo-the-crypto-project-putting-chicken-back-on-the-table-in-venezuela
'via Blog this'
November 9, 2019 - "In a TV broadcast last month, Venezuelan President Maduro suggested installing hen coops in classrooms to feed the country’s starving children. It’s a measure of the enduring humanitarian crisis that he’s persistently insisted does not exist. And this stance, say aid workers, makes it impossible for international agencies, like UNICEF and the World Food Programme, to airlift and distribute the supplies that Venezuelans so desperately need....
"But a new initiative, PolloPollo, is hoping to put poultry, and other groceries back on the table once again. PolloPollo is using blockchain to deliver on its promise, but also to address questions of transparency and accountability that have been levied against other donation programs....
"It’s not the only one. Further afield, the World Food Programme has also been using DLT [distributed ledger technology] to distribute aid to those who need it most since early last year, and is now both expanding the ground it covers and improving on the technology....
"Casper Niebe, PolloPollo’s founder, told Decrypt [that aid] recipients don’t even need a smartphone. They simply have to register on the platform’s website, and post a request.... When a third party responds to the request and makes a donation on the platform, the person requesting food gets a text message or an email. They then pick up and digitally sign for their supplies from a food retailer or producer nearby. The shop or farm then receives payment for the produce in 'bytes,' the cryptocurrency of the Obyte platform PolloPollo is built on. The final step is when an Obyte representative visits the supplier and converts the cryptocurrency into Venezuelan Bolivars, or another crypto.
"Niebe said that the project was born out of his frustration at the lack of transparency in current aid distribution platforms. Transaction fees and costs eat up around 3.5 percent of the average donation, according to estimates, and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that up to 30 percent of development funds are lost to corruption.... Niebe believes PolloPollo is a better solution, one that offers more accountability. With their digital signature, the aid recipients activate the smart contract that ensures suppliers are paid. And donors are notified via the PolloPollo platform.....
"Since early in 2018, the World Food Programme has been using blockchain to address the food shortages that dog the 106,000 refugees who have fled Syria, and set up temporary homes in Jordan’s camps. 'Currently, we’re exploring the foundational blockchain layer, rather than cryptocurrency,' Houman Haddad, the UN executive behind the project, told Decrypt.
"His initiative, Building Blocks, provides food vouchers for the refugees to redeem in local stores. It uses a 'permissioned' or private version of the Ethereum blockchain, together with iris scanning technology, to manage the data underpinning the delivery of the vouchers. To buy food, a recipient need only go to a participating supermarket, where their iris is scanned and the price of the food they need is deducted from the family’s account....
"Instead of furnishing refugees with crypto, Haddad’s dream is to roll out a more decentralized version of Building Blocks; one that all 40 of the organizations assisting people in the camps can use.... Meanwhile, Building Blocks is expanding to Bangladesh and rolling out a blockchain that Haddad hopes will — eventually — service more than 800,000 Rohinga refugees."
'via Blog this'
