UNICEF CryptoFund: Exploring Blockchain and How it Could Change Futures for the Most Vulnerable

foreign [Music] so hey let's say hi to Sana that she's coming here right now thank you okay thank you so much [Applause] hi everyone my name is Sana bedi and I'm here from the UNICEF Venture fund team to share with you a little about what we're doing with our crypto funds as well as our blockchain Explorations and how that's doing at UNICEF uh so far so ready to get started um as we're confronted with new realities uh on how technology as well as how digital Solutions can impact the lives of children what we're really seeing is still half the world is not connected to the internet oops what we're also seeing is that when digital Solutions do exist and the digital solutions that we find in the market are not necessarily always built to solve critical challenges that are addressing children and their communities and and that that does become a little bit problematic also because when these when these Solutions are developing and when we are seeing digital uh platforms we developed we're seeing that many times they're at the expense uh of the most marginalized their voices are not heard their data is not reflected in the systems and they're they're essentially getting more and more left out in how developing in how digital Solutions are being developed and also when we do see digital Solutions exist so when we're seeing the right digital Solutions be present many a times they're blocked uh behind proprietary Tech which makes these Solutions more and more inaccessible leaving them behind and leaving them uh with not getting access to what they should be and so that's really what we at UNICEF are trying to solve we're trying to see that there is this missing Gap there is this Gap where uh Solutions can be made more accessible Services can be made more accessible uh and we're doing that by three things by piloting and developing solutions that are more accessible by ensuring that we're investing in entrepreneurs as well as in problem solvers that are often overlooked and third by driving Venture Capital to markets that don't see enough of such funding and so uh at the UNICEF Venture fund uh we really invest in early stage Frontier Technology Solutions and we do this to accelerate innovations that we see as promising for the lives of children and then what we really aim to do is invest in disruptive Tech because we think that that's the intersection of technology that can impact a large number of lives and so our team at the ventures office at the office of innovation uh in UNICEF really looks at tracking emerging Trends and identifying new areas of exploration where UNICEF can make a mark and we do this by investing in Virtual and augmented reality drones blockchain of course artificial intelligence and data science uh here so here you'll see a map which has got to date we've made 124 Investments across 74 countries uh the pink dots in the map really represent the female Founders that we've invested in so 43 of our portfolio is actually female-led companies um and as I mentioned the goal is to invest in these early State Solutions and make them fundamental open source platforms so the little uh check marks that you see are certified digital Solutions we have currently 11 of these uh in our portfolio and to do this we provide startups with funding in two ways the first is through our seed funding so that's a hundred thousand dollars the second is through our growth fund promising Solutions have the opportunity to get additional funding up to four hundred thousand dollars and companies are able to receive this investment in both Fiat as well as cryptocurrency and in its current firm we provide investment in ether as well as Bitcoin and of course the companies receive a one-year uh you know mentorship and ex Tech expertise guidance over a one year period and the funds investment thesis really then is looking at two main approaches the first is to invest in solutions that can directly impact the lives of children room son is one such company and you'll be hearing from the founder more tomorrow as well they've actually developed a digital cash and voucher assistance management system and they will be providing cash transfers with our country office to 1500 families in remote Nepal the second set of investment thesis we have is that to invest in Solutions um that are really core infrastructure uh and statweek a company from India blockchain based solution is one such example they've really developed a end-to-end supply chain tracking system and with UNICEF the use case was really focused on tracking vaccines all the way from manufacturers to Consumers but they're now using the same platform to be able to track agricultural produce for the Indian government and so we're really seeing that our portfolio which is 124 Investments uh has been able to reach 31 million beneficiaries we're also seeing that fund companies have been able to raise 27 million dollars in additional follow-on funding after receiving that initial investment from the fund eight percent of our portfolio also made successful exits so what we're really seeing is while fund companies are being able to position themselves as key leaders in making social impact they're also being able to develop financially Sustainable Solutions which are you know positioned as open source Financial platforms and that's what comes to what makes the fund model unique we invest in local Solutions because we believe local Solutions are the best way to solve local problems we're seeing that our companies are driving private Capital to innovating for children as I mentioned eighty percent of the companies generating Revenue 70 million 17 million has been raised in follow-on funding just by the startup portfolio the 43 of our female-led companies less Venture Capital goes to women and we're happy with the 43 but we're really striving to get to a 50 gender balance uh we also have then the most important crypto fund it is still the only uh and the first crypto mechanism in the United Nations system where we're able to accept hold and disperse cryptocurrency uh through the fund to our startups and finally everything that we invest in is open source uh and that's because we believe open source is more scalable more adaptable and more accessible the crypto fund was actually launched exactly three years ago at Devcon in 2019 with the long-standing uh of course the long-standing commitment uh and bold partnership with the ethereum foundation that made it possible we're now coming to what is the end of the Prototype period so it was a three-year prototype launch and we're really hoping to institutionalize operations from the crypto fund so that we're able to continue making uh and bringing these results that we've got so the crypto fund was launched as really a mechanism to help UNICEF build its institutional muscle memory on how to operate in crypto but also on preparing for a digitally financed future and we're really seeing that we've actually been able to come against uh and show results against the initial sort of indicators that we set up for ourselves we're seeing that a hundred percent of our transactions are transparent uh and can be tracked we're seeing uh also that we're able to make those transfers in a very less period of time and also spending less than a percent on transaction fees and so we've seen that 35 uh Investments that we've made in the past three years were companies that actually received investment in crypto and where hearing of course a lot on the benefits from this from the startups themselves as well on how they've actually benefited in terms of just financial reporting in terms of ease of transparency as well as just hiring the very best talent across uh across the world and so we will be also announcing a new uh cohort of Investments that will be receiving a crypto crypto funding later this month I'm also happy to announce that we have with us xcap it a gamified savings uh platform again a blockchain solution uh they are actually the very first contributors to company to contribute back to the Innovation fund uh while the the amount is not looking significant here for Unicef this is a very momentous time uh and that's really because we're seeing how a portfolio company can contribute back to the growth of the fund and finally we invite you to collaborate with us you can collaborate with us with your expertise and mentorship in building open source communities you can also provide mentorship directly to a select few startups if you're a startup we will be launching a new call for applications and this is going to be for climate Tech Solutions the call is going to be out later this month so stay tuned and finally co-invest with us join the Venture fund partner with us to really contribute in building digital public goods that can really impact the lives of children in more ways than one you can write to us directly at the Venture fund at unicef.org or else uh check us out on social at UNICEF innovate thank you so much for your time it's a pleasure [Applause]