One-line solution summary:
Blockchain enabled System to reward contributions of members of the community
Pitch your solution.
A social fintech solution enabled by a Blockchain decentralized system, consisting of a currency token and a marketplace to reward community contributions. It attributes an economic value, through its social currency token ( Bitmal), to impactful contributions to the local communities. The platform features a rewards mechanism and an intrinsic social scoring system that optimizes impact on local communities by enabling its members to earn and transfer Bitmals currency token to enterprises that have the most appealing value proposition and to the most trustworthy and engaged members of the community
Through its social currency token (Bitmal), it:
Rewards members of the community actively contributing with their skills and talents and enables them to use Bitmals earned to:
fund social enterprises, organizations and initiatives the community needs the most
earn rewards through the Bitmal Market place that would allow them to further gain expertise and skills
Allows social enterprises/organizations to scale by using Bitmals earned to procure goods and services from the Bitmal Marketplace
Allows donors to optimize allocation of funds by financing social project/ enterprises that the community identifies as having the most appealing value proposition.
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Bitmal innovative social fintech solution has recently addressed many of the challenges that have been further accentuated in light of the Covid- 19 pandemic namely
-increasing concerns of the transmission of the virus via cash which pushed for the use of digital currency
-social distancing increased shift to digital platforms
-Rising economic pressures limited ability of many to repay their loans as they lost their sources of income
-Social imbalances revealed by Corona pandemic stressed need for greater financial inclusion and innovative fintech products that promote social responsibility,
- Increased sense of social responsibility, collective action and volunteerism.
However Impact of contributions to support communities are not optimized as they are:
a/ not systematically tracked in a transparent manner as to increase accountability, reduce corruption and hidden costs
b/ not rewarded, incentivized and recognized
c/ not always efficiently allocated
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
We have deployed Bitmal to support unprivileged communities in Jordanconsisting of bottom of the pyramid Jordanians, Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Target market consisted of:
- "mums":AT home mothers -with low level of literacy rate but who through deployment of the pilot revealed to be the most committed
- Youth: University students and young professionals
- Entrepreneurs: Members of the community who
The pilot aims at developing a better understanding of the needs of the community. To that end, we recruited coordinators from within the community to work closely with members of community and organized awareness campaign and consultation meetings.
Bitmal impact:
Mobilizing collective action by members of local communities.
Optimizing social impact by enabling communities to re-allocate resources to where they have the greatest needs and to those they trust the most. It leverages blockchain technology and data to crowd source decision making process to members of the community in decentralized manner by distributing Bitmals.
Attributing an economic value to social contribution and multiplying their impact
Increasing transparency and traceability of funds through blockchain infrastructure
Creating a social scoring and rewarding systems incentivizing members of community to increase their contributions and engagement
Gamification of the process of social contribution and engage younger demographics in the process of doing good.
Creating a multiplier effect in social giving by leveraging the deployment of regenerative economies
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Mission Billion Challenge WURI West Africa Prize and your selected dimension.
Bitmal builds an ecosystem that would enable members of community to :
- be rewarded with Bitmals currency token for their work
- use Bitmals earned to cover social insurance programs
Blockchain infrastructure would enable and tracking of their contributions and trace funds.
Furthermore, the platform would enable them to:
- identify opportunities on the platform that would allow them to contribute their time and expertise, earn Bitmals, acquire new skills and expertise
- earn rewards through Marketplace such as training programs
- social scoring would enable them to be recognized for their work and their contributions
Where is your solution team headquartered?
Riyadh Saudi ArabiaWhat is your solution’s stage of development?
Who is the primary delegate for your solution?
souad abdelhamid
If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
Describe what makes your solution innovative.
There is a need for a paradigm shift in means to address systematic challenges that faces social work. Bitmal is disrupting the way social work is done. it incentives community to become stakeholders of issues as opposed to being a stand-byer or a recipient of a service. It aims at mobilizing the whole community to become problem solvers.by changing people’s behaviour on how to solve social issues,
While there are a number of ventures that reward and incentivize members of communities for their work or funnel donations to organizations, , Bitmal is unique in that it introduces a new framework to operate within. It introduces a blockchain based system and a marketplace that connects supply and demand sides of contributions in a systematic manner while measuring impact, building trust and reputation. It builds an integrated ecosystem that provides a disruptive fintech solution as it ;
- Incentivizes community contributions through social scoring
- Enables community to decide on allocation of resources through Bitmal Social Currency
- Brings together entrepreneurs, experts, donors and members of the community allowing them to gain skills & scale through Bitmal Marketplace
- Increases accountability & traceability of funding through Blockchain Technology
Provide evidence that your solution works.
BitMal is a BlockChain based social market place that attributes a value, in aform of social currency token to contributions of members of the community. By creating such value, social contributions are “priced” in Bitmals which makes that value exchangeable. This leads to a wider socio economic impact and multiplier effect.
Automating the value trading system through Bitmal will create a decentralized global social marketplace for everyone to contribute to the communities of their choice. BitMal uses Blockchain technology to build a transparent ecosystem embedding an intrinsic social scoring,
Through its blockchain technology, Bitmal will instill a transparent system that tracks and traces contributions of donors, rewards and recognizes the work of volunteers and traces milestones achieved by organizations.-
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
What is your theory of change?
Bitmal theory of change is grounded on the following activities and outputs:
Encourage community contributions
Increase in the number of volunteering hours and value of voluntarism
Increase in the number of volunteers
Increase in the engagement of volunteers
Incentivize scaling and formation of enterprises
Increase in the number of projects and enterprises
Costs of running and funding enterprises are decreasing
Encourage decentralization by outsourcing the decision making process to the community of volunteers and build the ecosystem
Volunteers have an urge to re-donate the BitMals to support Social Enterprises/Start-ups
Streamlining of process flow through the ecosystem with minimal bottlenecks
The deployment of Bitmal pilot showcased success of the theory of change on the ground
How can your solution be incorporated into social protection and service delivery systems in West Africa?
The solution would bring together the different stakeholders to build an ecosystem that would have multi faceted benefit for the community and provide social insurance to information workers. Bitmal social currency would be used through platform enabled by blockchain technology platform to better track funds , avoid corruption and mis-use of funds.
Adoption of the platform by different stakeholders would optimize impact:
- Government 's identity verification and authentication mechanisms offered by the fID system would constitute the base of the platform's KWC as to connect different nodes of the ecosystem
- Service providers- from public and private sector would onboard on the platform and receive Bitmals
- Employers and entrepreneurs to post opportunities on the platform to which users of the platform can apply to and be selected
-Training providers and mentors to be onboarded on marketplace to provide rewards in terms of training progam
With consent of the users, the system could automatically deduct amount required to cover for different social protection schemes as they earn Bitmals- By using social currency as opposed to fiat currency, would allow them to create a multiplier effect for each Bitmal injected in the system and its use for impactful purposes.
The ecosystem, would not only allow them to systematically cover different social protection schemes but as well to tap into new opportunities, gain visibility and recognition by community , acquire new skills and exposure
Describe how 'user friendly' your solution is to incorporate into social protection programs and delivery systems in West Africa.
The platform would onboard service providers of social protection programs and allow them to post different schemes on the marketplace for each user by linking it to their ID system- The solution user friendliness stems in fact that it would allow user to have all elements in one platform and be able to track and trace while positively impacting his/her community-
Explain how your solution is interoperable with existing technologies and open standards.
Bitmal ’s ecosystem will involve the use of Stellar blockchain, which follows a Stellar Consensus Protocol (SCP), allowing advantages of Decentralized Control, Low Latency, Flexible Trust and Asymptotic Security. It provides a way to reach consensus without relying on a closed system to accurately record financial transactions. SCP has a set of provable safety properties that optimizes for safety over liveness—in the event of partition or
misbehaving nodes, it halts progress of the network until consensus can be reached. It will be open for APIs provided for integration
How does your solution account for low connectivity environments and for users with low literacy and numeracy levels?
We had deployed the platform with unprivileged community in Jordan where users had low literacy level- we worked closely with community to understand their needs and based on their feedbacks, we have developed a second beta version of a mobile application as we realized that majority of those with limited literacy level used their mobiles- and even used applications such as whatsapp. We realized that with this target audience, we needed to have physical presence to onboard them, raise awareness, regular consultation meetings and tutoring sessions which greatly impacted success of the platform and their endorsement of the theory of change.
Select the key characteristics of your target population.
How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?
Currently 100 users
As we foster more partnership with local organizations and scale the platform from a beta version to a full fledge platform, we project 2000 in one year and 100,000 in five years as the ecosystem scales up
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
Our main objective for next year is to deploy a full fledge platform and foster partnerships with many organizations along .with achieving the following short term goals
Scalability of the model to use cases
Proving White label models
Proving the technology
Adapting the Business Model
Growth Markets
Adjustability of model to different markets
In the longer term, we aim at scaling the Bitmal ecosystem and its market place across different countries
What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?
Main Barriers:
- regulatory provisions that limit deployment of Blokchain technology and social currency in a number of countries and cross- border transfers
- Securing funding to deploy a full fledge platform
- Bringing together different stakeholders to build the ecosystem
How do you plan to overcome these barriers?
- Partnerships with policy makers and regulators to overcome obstacles to deployment of disruptive business models and technology
- We strongly believe the World Bank Group in its systematic approach to bring together the different stakeholders to implement its program would create a conducive environment to building an ecosystem in line with Bitmal theory of change and support development of a full fledge platform
What type of organization is your solution team?
How many people work on your solution team?
Co-founder are working on full time basis
Two members of the team are working on part time basis and three are contractors/consultants
How long have you been working on your solution?
it was conceptualized back in 2014- Started implementation on the ground in 2019
Why are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Shared strategic vision and passion to provide innovative solution to support community development. Team members share the believe that Bitmal would bring positive impact. They complement each other in level of expertise and experience- Co-founders where school mates and have worked together for a number of years on a number of initiatives
What organizations do you currently partner with, if any? How are you working with them?
We have been working with Saudi Telecom Company, World Bank Group and local organization such as Ruwwad Al Tanmiya in addition to an accelerator in Geneva- We have for instance developed a Memorandum of understanding with Ruwwad Al Tanmiya to deploy the pilot and to work with their team
What is your business model?
1- Administration fees:
Bitmal will charge users of the platform, an administration fee at Cash in and Cash out- as Bitmals are exchanged into to Fiat currency and vice versa
2- Trading of Bitmal currency tokens:
As the currency evolves from a reputational token to a utility token
3- Fee structured deal and white label solutions
Bitmal will provide corporations, financial institutions, endowment funds and governmental organizations two main solutions:
a/ a fee structured deal for their organizations to use the platform either for their employees to volunteer and support local communities or as part of their social corporate responsibility to donate
b/ or provide them with a unique white label interface /solutions
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, or to other organizations?
What is your path to financial sustainability?
While at early stage we are relying on grants and own funds till we develop a full fledge platform, we aim at being financially sustainable by generating revenues streams outlined above
If you have raised funds for your solution or are generating revenue, please provide details.
We have raised funds through Saudi Telecom Company, our own funds and received advisory support and mentorship by World Bank Group
If you seek to raise funds for your solution, please provide details.
We aim at raising $500k to scale the platform from a beta version to a full fledge platform
What are your estimated expenses for 2020?
We estimate budget of expenses to be around:
-$500k to develop and deploy full fledge platform
- $200k for operational costs
Why are you applying to the Mission Billion Challenge WURI West Africa Prize?
The program is aligned with what Bitmal goal of building an ecosystem that would optimize impact local communities. The deployment of Bitmal within that program is what we aspire for and would we would greatly benefit working with WBG team and local stakeholders-
We hope through this program that we receive needed support to scale platform from a beta version to a full fledge and benefit from mentorship and technical advise on technological, legal and financial perspectives
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Please explain in more detail here.
Technological advise to scale platform from a beta version to a full fledge platform and best link it with service providers and contextualize solution to local needs
Financial front: on business model
Legal advise on KYC and cross borders payments
What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?
World Bank Group
Solution Team
-
souad abdelhamid Bitmal
-
RA
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Solution Name:
Bitmal