# Blockchain at the Edge - Transformational Solutions: Open Format (Devcon5)

- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2020-10-09
- Duration: 56:34
- Topics: blockchain, smart contracts, distributed ledger, ethereum
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-VIDaDjnrp9g
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDaDjnrp9g

## Description

By Thessy Mehrain, Hadassah Damien

Blockchain technology has the potential to transform the lives of marginalized communities, while greatly improving the lives of others by shifting agency from institutions to individuals, from the center to the edges. 
Decentralized technologies can also create alternatives in crisis economies, by providing the transparency needed to counter corruption and human trafficking, and much more. 

In a series of independent workshops, we will explore how to create transformational impact with blockchain tech via:
- Turbo-charging existing informal solutions 
- Creating solutions for environments that have been ignored

We invite Devcon participants to join short, energetic and fun workshop sessions to connect creators (Developers, UX, Product Strategists...) and those for whom blockchain solutions can be transformational.

Join us to:

- Learn from and with those who have experienced systematic hardship based on identity (ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation/class/status), and those from crisis economies ( currency events/sanctions) 
- Identify, define, and hack together to solve problems with and for those in crisis, collaborate on requirements and test with one another to perfect your products 

Attending these sessions will equip participants with skills to build more meaningful, secure and robust products and systems.

Groups/Topics: (proposed/open to change)  social transformation
We add problem statements

Financial control/ ownership … currency crisis, 

Data privacy - digital identity, records, safe reporting, protesters, whistle blower

Transparency - sourcing of food supply, provenance of money/corruption,

Points of Contact:  

Overall - Thessy Mehrain    TG @ThessyMehrain  (always at the event starting 9am)
Facilitation - Alix Keller/Hadassah Damien/Dhruv Luthra
Community/ Social - Adam Wozney - (at the Consensys Booth)
Organization - Kelly LeValley (always at the event starting 9am)
Ukiyo - Anna George

For event updates join Telegram Group: https://t.me/BlockchainAtTheEdge

## Transcript

[Applause] hello everyone in this room call your attention to the front and I will have you stop talking for a moment and it'll get you all talking again sorry about that hello welcome this is blockchain at the edge day - Meghan sent us edenian a facilitator with consensus I we will talk at you for as short a time as possible so that you can talk to each other what we started with yesterday was a two and a half hour sessions where we had about 50 60 people through the room thinking through some specific ideas use cases and information around instances where we might use blockchain for social impact or as like American scholar bell hooks says moving the margin to the center so thinking about instance and the we're going to use blockchain that might be for people who experience marginalization but actually making that the center the focus of what we're tuning as opposed to an edge right so what we're going to do a quick we are going to orient you all to where we left off yesterday we're going to break into groups by interest area so you can keep sharing with each other we will also have a other new if anything we were working on doesn't do we're going to have a little time for thinking ideation things like that Loreena share back as a group and the goal of what we're doing over there is to like build on each other's thinking and grow our learning so I will invite somebody who was in who was in this group to talk about where are the ideas around finance and like financial economy in landed yesterday ok ok what we did yesterday is so I'm testing MIT I'm also consensus and the dominant blockchain and anyways so on this in this area we talked about financial issues and how we can resolve them and what they might mean right and so we ended up zooming in on the two main issues that came up one being access not having financial access for example let's say in Kenya Somalia versus Iago was talk about project helping people by creating circular economy so that work with means creating access for people who otherwise wouldn't have access by providing basically the organization of assets and without making them liquid might be to a changeup by having a token and that way you can exchange them at that locus wouldn't come from like wouldn't have to be paid for so therefore it's creating a value chain that exists before versus a another issue in financial in the financial category being for example country's financial crisis where the money is devalued so what you have but this is going away and also countries under sanctions my to earn your money had somewhere no patrol over so that had that be the main topics were being about ownership and excess right and so one of the the Lord leagues was that in some ways the proposed solutions to create liquidity it was kind of like everybody becomes their own little central bank could be when it's scared video ad system right and this would actually be exactly what we trying to you know quite Aeterna tips for why on the other hand you know creating a system like that said what is up a Bitcoin to be able to maintain control over your finances could also prevent access so this is where we landed at the very end that they had these two topics around finance and that potentially there what the solution for one part of the problem could we create your own system and the for the other part of the problem and could maintain the original problem and so we haven't gotten further than that but the author came up with a couple of ideas that have to be requirements and and they were like features like being permissionless being tamper proof we trust less being acceptable being global and building an ecosystem and providing interoperability so anybody who is going interested in in this area later should should join on this side go back to all right thank you Cassie all right so for folks who are just joining us welcome welcome we are orienting to where we left off with our problems and ideas yesterday learning at us working groups in a few minutes but first I'm going to give you over to we will talk a little bit about another problem area where were working on I am leaks covered yesterday same as testing was saying they very small proprietary software I team lack of IDs decentralized I did a general a small problem very very hard to search the solution against that but synthesized it down to a couple of areas and they are undocumented migrants refugee and asylum seekers need protective verifiable transferrable identity because of access to social services or low work and protection are contingent on your 90s that was the problem statement we came up with and the second one we came up with was without the ability to honor Jesus children elders since we elves of need the ability to determine who is responsible or is able to act on behalf of them and their ID because these peoples are the most vulnerable so again vulnerable communities that need to be centered and us something edge so we got this topic for like your on this topic there's other issues here again it's a kind of an ID person personally I'm more of like a traffic trace elements first of or no one wanted to do not find enough his ID so have fun party with me over here Thank You Lee the final issue area that we jammed on yesterday was on Carbon Copy governance but in particular thinking about like coops as doubts question mark right it's like using a really grounded example of cooperative businesses economists organizations some of our big ideas were around what it meant to allocate scarce public resources fairly how many wait welcome welcome how we could impact a supply chain positively and how we might have combat corruption and monopolies to help small businesses that help individuals who are so one of the problem statements that we landed on let's see let me read it from here farmers and co-op meet a method to distribute value from his fields efficiently and fairly because often smaller farmers are not treated fairly right and then we also pulled that and had a few more extracted problem statements around decision-makers or leaders in organizations needing to be able to make decisions and ways that are transparent about that so if you want to think about how cooperatives and how governance might support small businesses proficient in fair for small business owners huge ham over here you'll see that we have a fourth area right it's talking about decision-making in small business and governance or coops or IDs or financial control and ownership or currently doesn't appeal to you you are going to go to the other area and we will generate topics there so in a moment when I say go you're all going to stand up and move and find a seat we're over a seat with you into the area that you would like to talk about and work on for the next 40 minutes or so so again is that everybody to you and every one of the topics because I know some of you came in late Financial is related to financial accessibility and maintaining the assets you have so financial accessibility governance and cooperative organizations I D like positive digital security I don't want to talk about any of those let's talk about something else if you have a burning topic in your mind you always wanted to talk about you wanted to get other people around go here propose it so so they are related you talk about you know financial is related to ID they're all related in our money in our right so so let's recall talking in groups yeah so I'm the kind of three you're all going to get up so the purpose of what you're going to do in your group is you're going to look at the problem statements that were left and you're going to improve them the problem statements that we have you just came up with yesterday they're not good yeah right and there's so much more information that you with what you know your experiences you can add to these issue areas needs problems because we know that we have to built something that we as a group can improve on so everybody stand up find a seat in the issue areas like to work on [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you love to have a right to be happy one of them [Music] why not thank you sir [Applause] so rocky migrants dear they join me for assigning defendant winkers and so these companies actually axis with its private oh there yeah the conditions of the what's not so entrance abilities like that would happen that you are really [Music] [Applause] [Music] my life [Music] other there everybody was like something and laughter an outsider oh yes yes yes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we're in the wrong zone idiot they've never liked Sarah [Music] understand an area that is actually modified [Music] yeah [Music] [Music] yes [Music] select enemies [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] - the power seat [Applause] you