Introduction

In December 2018, the UNICEF Venture Fund on-boarded its largest round of portfolio investments of thirteen startup companies using frontier technology solutions to address complex challenges and create fairer opportunities for children and young people. Utopixar joins the Blockchain portfolio- these investments are part of UNICEF's larger blockchain explorations of using smart-contracts for organisational efficiencies, creating distributed decision-making processes, and working to build knowledge and understanding of distributed ledger technology both in the United Nations and in the countries where UNICEF works.

Our team at Utopixar is working on the Coinsence project - a decentralized blockchain technology platform where people and organizations can collaborate on initiatives addressing social and environmental challenges.

Nonprofit and grassroots organizations play an important role in addressing local challenges but due to financial constraints and limited staffing capacity, fulfilling their missions often becomes difficult. Our team recognized after Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution that innovative incentive systems have the potential to engage people to solve local challenges.

Frontier technology & open source

Using a distributed common ledger ensures that the Conscience project offers accountability, transparency, and higher security for our users. Furthermore, blockchain technologies provide stakeholders a means to create flexible smart contracts that are consensus-based -- where all parties are involved and in agreement.  

In addition, using an open source solution allows our team to benefit from collaborations ensuring that the product we put forward is customer-centric and can help us achieve our goal of engaging local community actors in solving local social and environmental challenges.

Team & diversity

One of our key strengths is the diversity of our team - from having local and international expertise, to supporting young talent, and having multidisciplinary experiences. However, a common thread among us all is the belief in open collaboration – on developing a space that can empower local communities to create innovative solutions for future generations.

Way ahead

Our aim is to engage local communities, especially youth, to become ‘changemakers’. Utopixar will use the investment from the UNICEF Venture Fund to improve, test, and promote our platform. With this funding, we will be able to bring onboard a full-time developer to sort out the bugs and kinks of our platform and build our network in Tunisia to increase awareness amongst youth on how to get involved and engaged. We are also excited to meet our blockchain cohort in New York and to collaborate with them on using emerging technologies like blockchain to address challenges facing children and youth.

 
Join our conversations online. Follow us at @unicefinnovate