[Applause]
hi everyone come in and take a seat
welcome to watching from the bottom up
we're going to introduce to you some
lessons from creating financial
empowerment in remote Pacific island
communities using a real-life use case
that's still ongoing now
my name is Sandra when taking her I work
for Oxfam it's a global nonprofit
present in over 90 countries
I am the Pacific passion livelihood
sleep so for the past ten years I've
been working in disaster preparedness
and response and I manage the portfolio
of programs across the Pacific region
that are designed to deliver payments to
people affected by natural disasters the
mine is nucleus on the converse a clay
sample is a tax cut that really focuses
on creating financial inclusion
fundamentally these are the number of
reduce to use spaces good loan we're
going to be looking at today is how to
get cash to horrible people in crises so
together we've managed to run the
world's first cryptocurrency enabled
cash based assistance program using
Oxfam's
experienced field presence and community
reach and of course the ingenuity of
several dozen so that's not like to
start with an anecdote so when we were
working better larger plastic banknotes
had been introduced relatively recently
and people are really excited about that
and they tell us the best thing about
these new plastic banknotes was that you
could bury them in the ground for longer
without them washing because for me it
was really the first time that the
concept of being unpacked
shifted from this model the academic
concept to something that was actual
very tangible too often watching
projects looking at financial inclusion
really take quite a superficial approach
believing that technology can be just
injected into communities that
everything will be magically better and
we reckon that this has left much
bizzy's discourse around what change or
financial inclusion and saw disconnected
from the realities that people
experience on grant so here today as a
community at DEFCON we believe that we
absolutely cannot in good faith plan to
be solving some of the world's biggest
challenges without working with and in
communities blockchain has from the
beginning been promising financial
inclusion open payment systems for
underserved communities and marginalized
people but in order to do this we need
to actively reach out to those
communities and get there
and rather than just gain in spaces like
this so this is fun Lenten also if I'm
active but not to is a collection of 83
islands in the South Pacific Ocean it is
a country that is extremely remote so
don't be afraid if you have never heard
of it before but a lot too is with all
these islands extremely dispersed
it's very sparsely developed and in fact
most people and their islands do not
live close to a bank
in fact banks are often not even on the
same land mass as there another fact is
that most of these people live closer to
the volcano than they do to obey so
there are actually more people who are
volcano in funnel active event people
who are banked even Vanuatu also it's a
question of urgency when watch was the
world's most disaster
country it sits directly on the Ring of
Fire it's in the middle of the Pacific
cyclone corridor it sits on the front
lines of climate change and as such this
use case has been invented invented
within an existing disaster preparedness
program so let's talk about cash anyway
what do it why would we want to give
cash instead of in the conveyed such as
food or clothing and the reason we want
to do this is because collectively wreck
ready to terrible of working out what
what will be will need during the
process so same thing is in Syrian
refugees have actually sold behind
they've been given to fly what they
actually need so it makes a lot more
sense does give you cash instead to have
that more prices good mom business
getting disabled attached to people it's
a thorough manner is really really hard
this series have enjoyed shooting
thoughts of cash up the river because
they're less likely to be ambushed when
they're going to rob dried up on the
right here's the most minute approaches
we're moving into practice if you just
let people buy what you they even the
stores you can just three versus stores
instead these things instead of need to
find ways to get physical cash to
hundreds and hundreds of individuals
instead you only need to find a way to
get into a handful of stores and this is
often a lot easier because stores can
have a higher level of financial
inclusion than individuals you need a
way to track how much each vendor is
going on so we give it to become each
lender a contactless paper which looks
like that
all this to say what's render this is
it's really really inclusive it means
that we can help me power
anyone with us about how they are quite
a lot so this card is tied to an
ethereal watch which means that we can
track the credit spends in here where we
can take this sip see someone step burn
that I'll make it more resilient by not
just track the credit but instead
actually use
staying quiet picked the local currency
a measure of transferring parts since
things that vendors actually have real
value that arrives in their hands every
time they accept the payment it's more
than just a constant assembler that will
repay them
this is screebl that means that the end
of end or start have to allow us to
repay them they can find another
provider dissolving their stabl plan to
sell it by the same points off even say
who does end up doing a lot of green
payments this is fundamentally changes
the structure of what we're doing we're
no longer just a end-to-end payment
provider actually now two things we have
a lot and an exchange and this is really
important because it changes the
regulatory structure in which we operate
these things that are far more flexible
for us to operate in the otherwise
really difficult countries like Lebanon
Organa lodging so this is a very
tangible advantage of using a blockchain
over existing processes and so the
qualifiers it's 96 percent faster than
what we would do or what Martin is doing
in the past this is because I'm able to
bypass a huge chunk of that existing
banking system so again what does
blockchain do for us me speaking as an
NGO for me what this does is it starts
to break some of the chains that are
consistently constraining the way the
big UN agencies NGOs foundations and
other nonprofits operate when you use a
crypto enable payment
system what you're doing is you're
creating more nervousness around the way
that money is traced in the way that
money is donated what this means is that
you're opening up that humanitarian
system to include new actors and in our
case smaller vendors it also means that
that corner business allows us to
deliver by and with local vendors across
and between multiple locations at once
because as we know the world's
earthquakes the world cyclones the
world's volcanoes absolutely do not care
about wars they do not discriminate
according to which country you're
located in or which country you've
targeted your donations do so in
addition to improving efficiency and
automation
it takes what are unnecessarily complex
and slow systems of big agencies and it
makes them much more simple much more
intuitive and much easier for local
micro economic stakeholders to use now
our system our humanitarian system today
is also unnecessarily hierarchical and
I'll even say that it is still very
colonial in the way that people decide
who should get what and who is making
those decisions
this results in monopolies of control
and privilege and power and
concentrations of donations when in fact
in reality communities are always the
first responders but they are almost
never the main responders but now using
these types of systems building in
communities and with them we can start
to focus on enabling small economic
stakeholders to play an active
process so they then become active
agents of recovery as opposed to being
passive recipients or beneficiaries of
humanitarian assistance so this sounds
great theory that meant stuff talked
about the realities of immigrant we
actually develop because there's no
platform work out of a Syrian refugee
camp in northern templates level that's
it here we plan to walk it to take these
parts using everything seems simple
enough this is exactly what we all use
on a regular basis without camp cards
when we got there we found that there
was an existing cash aid program been
run using debit cards also using the
instrument effects so fundamentally we
release in our system what we found is
that people would rather in something
that they pass the start of it and the
cost of the vendor blue chamber even
targeting for this is exactly what we
saw for very obvious reasons it's not by
real things now because they're just
Arabic numbers so it takes us into the
impression that we're working with the
concept that's really really universal
but for people with lower literacy who
were not so used to these so-called
Arabic numerals
it's pretty much of a impossible concept
obtained by taking a memorizer to
illustrate the supply here's what actual
Arabic numerals look like so even though
the numbers that you and I use on an
everyday basis especially based on this
number set try to remember
in some of you guys really really really
hard so this is where we need to start
to check our assumptions and revisit
them and really challenge with why do
you think we are
to decide on behalf of someone else and
to speak and replace their voice in the
process the reality is that the way that
the global financial system and its
payment instruments function does not
apply to many many people in developing
countries in fact it doesn't relate to
them sometimes it's not even there
people don't have debit cards there's no
bank there's no way to pay and sometimes
those payment systems are there but they
simply don't work or they're too
expensive so how do you resolve the
security issue
we explored many many service presidents
like symbols will come as waste medicine
all right easy right and above but
ultimately the community that logic
suggested something really really signal
to us just to display the name on the
bigglersport cell device turning hands
and check it now this seems trivial so
why is it so effective so the reason
this works is because it mimics the way
that transactions are actually secured
in these communities especially at the
micro level so speaking at the village
level it's actually very very difficult
to use somebody else's car or take
somebody else's belongings without
either the vendor or somebody else
around
eventually saying that is not you or
that is not him
that's not his or that is not hers those
systems of accountability are in place
for somebody who wants to steal
something eventually they're going to
meet a relative of the person that
extraordinary so case in point in final
art we've done nationwide feasibility
studies to actually assess if payment
systems as a mode of response is
possible and in so doing we consulted
with some of these vault with small
vendors that we work with now and what
they do is they do regularly lend money
to people just on the basis of knowing
their names they're lending money to
people on the basis of knowing their
customers so the seats of the vendors at
the community level are actually doing
kyc and they're able to cross check and
verify that information in leveraging
their relationships with people in the
communities around them now block to you
as it's currently designed is opera is
really optimized for trustless
environments and I think we need to
interrogate this a little bit because in
my world where I live where I work where
many of the billions of the world live
and work financial security is far more
of enhancing existing social frameworks
of trusts so really relying on those
that you can trust as opposed to
operating in trustless vacuum so this
isn't to say that blockchain doesn't
help what we have is a secure framework
that can enable social models of trust
to flourish and to expand by
accelerating the exchange of value
amongst in-between people at the
community level but at the same
eliminating the capacity of those people
to be able to abuse each other's trust
now what this means is that we can start
to bridge the gap between local and
international miles of Commerce by using
systems that are adapted to the way
people behave communities are more
decentralized than what we're used to
dealing with but it's not always in the
ways that we would expect sir in Japan
and a number that I'd like to the
reality is that if you want to live in a
country you need to imply a loss with
the regulatory expectations for the
authorities there cynnwys knows this the
hard way
Wibbly had to be Memphis for us like
that's his blood who live it up we're
trying to push those batteries too far
and ultimately our actions don't just
affect our company but also the end
users who unlike us don't have the
privileges that's getting out of the
country and leading so this is
consequences that have really really eek
impressionists yeah knowing who is
sitting or seeking funds is a deplorable
of a lot of these institutions of the
thirties path you need to assume that a
person sending money or a city money
isn't part of the duracell for instance
now this is noting is largely a process
of collecting multiple identity
documents from saga
and in cross-gender what we've been
learning I've been allowed to exact this
whole thing breaks down pretty quickly
if people spell their names differently
on every single piece of documentation
dates of birth often tended to differ by
months for 18 years this isn't something
the various what conceal identities it's
just a nature of emerging markets
hopefully though and these are the
content of document based on actually
doesn't really work for a lot of the
world and it also means that this neat
little diagram I showed you
stable quite a big centrifuge people is
unfortunately really much illegal same
ones a bar to liquid there's a couple
police we match against to work harder
instead we can use stable points as
collateral to meetcha to your token or
larger conversion from this token back
to a liquid stable point there's only
possible if you're past pale icy chips
and your addresses on employment
contract Wireless if you don't look like
this you can access down there a lot
Adaline clever
however you could still spend experience
these things that my conducting ayc
checks on vendors we're still able to
distribution individuals who would
otherwise be off limits this is a
process where one form of value has
different levels of liquidity to
different people and may even seem to
the coronium
implementation is something that we
prepared all off without watching and
this is a sister pretty interesting
conclusion that doesn't need to be the
enemy of financial compliance but rather
it can be a tool developed help me to an
increase financial inclusion so the
takeaway for you guys is that trust is
not always in institution in places
where those institutions don't exist
without infrastructure is not there in
fact Trust is actually in each other
it sounds common sense it sounds very
human let me give another example of
this happening so in the Solomon Islands
I had a discussion with the telephone
that was launching mobile money one of
the test groups had a guy who received
money into his mobile wallet on his
phone and he immediately went to the
cash out agent and he said to the cash
out agent
to cash out my full balance right here
right now on the table the cash out
agent hashed it out no problems and this
man killed it his money vilified them
and then gave it back and said okay
thank you I'd like you to put it back
inside now he just wanted to check that
that money was real he wanted to check
face to face with somebody that he knew
that that money was real because he just
did not believe that it could be on his
phone so this is where we can make some
magic right so when you have a tech
startup life cycle that's able to code
that's able to iterate on the ground
within the community and do this on the
fly plus an organization like Oxfam or a
civil society group that is embedded in
the community that has an unprecedented
level of access that's able to amplify
those community voices and encourage
participation through translation and
communication you can create something
entirely new so this is the last one so
this is where we can work in harmony and
literally build out the front end beyond
the existing infrastructure and even
beyond the digital infrastructure that
front end needs to end within the
community and that needs to be done
through that level of community
engagement and Gunsan
very very birth so this is where we need
to start blending advanced technologies
with the knowledge and techniques of
people that are used to communicating
with communities and this is also where
we can start to create feedback loops
that are mutually beneficial so what you
have tech that is enabling reach and
allowing you to build beyond where the
infrastructure does not go that tech can
create efficiencies and transparency but
when you have community representation
community presence community voices and
connections then what you're doing is
you're ensuring that that tech is being
enriched through iterative development
that it remains inclusive and that
eventually it's becoming more robust so
what have we been doing what have I been
doing I've been acting as a translator
this is how we include the voices of the
many and in fact we have encoded those
voices in the way that this application
has been constructed these are people
who are on the fringes of digital
infrastructure these are people who do
not have digital access who are not
digitally literate but yet there's
evidence of
the application has been built and
therefore as easy to easier to use and
this is also what makes unlocked cache
extremely distinctive so similar
development level working across several
countries Greece little erotica analogic
consider the camera and one thing that
want is that even the wrong pants is so
much diversity right now in Australia
94% of payments made using a contactless
bank card while 2014 more money was
transferred by mobile phone in
sub-saharan Africa then Europe or North
America come together
meanwhile engine had like come in the
times I've seen so many plans
the point is is that all we need to
virtually different a need to be treated
as such and the thing is
decentralization does not necessarily
guarantee diversity what change may
happen sexualizes computer code but the
decision were made on these layers
already suggests so much about what the
extrait user experience on top of this
will be the rates of inflation of the
currency how come other keys are stored
and the legal legal implications of our
designs if we're not careful we're easy
to client will organize the way people
interact with clients and the process
that we construct our world doesn't
necessarily translate continued stay
home breach this Financial Inclusion
devil rather than extending it in the
scheme of things many of the systems
that you and I work with on a day to day
basis they won't listen hey I hope you
on a legal past born and went through
this likely bizarre experiences with
direct money using my credit card but it
worked
but for me where I live and work this is
not the case for many emerging economies
for many markets in the global south
this is not the case but in some ways
bloodshed is actually
suited to those communities than it is
to those of us who have the
infrastructure working just fine for us
as we pay and as we travel this is a
solution now that has grown out of one
of the world's most remote communities
this is happening right now and we
absolutely intend to extend this both as
partners but also with these communities
in order to enable one community's
experience to grow and develop and
improve the next humanitarian response
but also to inform the next community
that's going to engage with the tech we
believe that the nature of blockchain
development should be inclusive not
exclusive
the system of delivering humanitarian
assistance is absolutely no exception to
this rule and so the final takeaway here
is if we can do this in a place like run
water then there is absolutely zero
excuse for those who are at this
conference and elsewhere are working on
blockchain to not engage with
communities and go that extra mile thank
you
[Applause]