Project Unblocked Cash

As the effects of climate change worsen and the COVID-19 pandemic decimates economic opportunities for marginalized communities, the need for social protection programming is exponentially outpacing NGO capabilities to respond. Many NGOs have had to cut their staff while expanding their programming presence, limiting their effectiveness. Project Unblocked Cash (PUC) is a pilot tested, blockchain enabled, digital cash assistance solution developed by Sempo and Emerging Impact (formerly ConsenSys Social Impact). The solution empowers NGOs and government agencies to deploy cash assistance programs in up to 96% less time while providing 100% anonymized transparency as to how funds are spent by beneficiaries. The solution works in low-Internet connected environments for illiterate and literate beneficiaries alike. The solution serves over 8,000 people across Greece, Lebanon, Vanuatu, Iraqi Kurdistan & Kenya. Unlike traditional social protection programs, PUC leaves behind lightweight financial infrastructure for economic empowerment and cashless value transfer via a community-first methodology.

Project Unblocked Cash provides a compliant, methodology driven, digital cash transfer solution that can be used by individuals in the informal sector, including cross-border migrant communities that vary in financial, digital, and/or reading/writing literacy. The solution already serves over 8,000 beneficiaries across Greece, Lebanon, Vanuatu, Iraqi Kurdistan & Kenya - many of which are completely illiterate. Additionally, we are planning to deploy PUC in 2 pilots in Venezuela during the summer of 2020 that will disburse over $80k USD to 1,200 people throughout an 8-month period. The program has piloted the first stablecoin-based cash assistance pilot in the world that can emulate any region's local currency. The approach also provides a cash off-ramp for verified vendors providing services to beneficiaries when needed. Program facilitators can easily and automatically disburse digital aid to thousands of beneficiaries at a time, making the solution perfect for inclusive, short-and long-term social insurance programs, such as unemployment insurance savings accounts and long-term savings accounts for pensions. PUC provides a flexible and efficient KYC process for beneficiaries based on the available identity credentials in the community and provides an anonymized beneficiary spending dashboard to program managers for complete transparency.

Project Unblocked Cash was developed to operate in developing markets, supporting both illiterate and literate community members to accept and spend digital cash aid as needed. The approach offers an opportunity to improve the efficiency of how cash assistance is delivered without compromising transparency and sustainability. This solution also includes features that integrate digital financial inclusion and utilization of decentralized networks for a more collaborative economy at the community level. In fact, community mobilization and education is an integral part to PUC's deployment approach, as we work with local nonprofits and community leaders before any deployment is implemented. Our users range from marginalized communities in Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Asia Pacific - many who have suffered from natural disasters and geopolitical instability. We iterate the approach by leveraging direct community feedback before and after each pilot, leveraging the methodological approach of major NGOs. PUC addresses beneficiary needs by providing a simple, intuitive cash transfer solution that it transparent, secure, and off-ramp back into the community's local currency. Each feature of the solution was discussed, reviewed, updated and tested at the field level based on local staff, community and vendor feedback & preferences.

Project Unblocked Cash was specifically designed to enable the most marginalized community members to gain access to social protection programming at scale. The solution looks to make social protection programming exponentially more efficient and transparent, so that program facilitators can understand community-need trends and report to government and philanthropy funders with exacting detail as to how the funds are being spent. PUC was built for quick-response, community-built cash assistance in emerging markets where there is low-Internet connectivity and low-literacy. Lastly, PUC has the capability of being used for day-to-day transactions and financial services long after the program is completed. 

Project Unblocked Cash represents one of the only private-social sector approaches to deploy emerging technology in the field at scale with consistent community feedback. 

The combination of Sempo's digital cash transfer technology and Emerging Impact's consulting and methodology presence ensures that PUC is a constantly evolving approach that major NGOs and government agencies can adopt as their social protection solution. PUC has iterated across multiple pilots with major NGOs like the Red Cross and Oxfam, and has proven to increase the efficiency of social protection programming by 96%, providing 100% anonymized transparency as to how beneficiaries spend aid. Such transparency ensures programatic accountability, enables detailed donor reporting, and makes it nearly impossible to conduct fraud, given that all program vendors are verified beforehand. 

Potential competitors include AID Tech, RedRose, and MPESA, all which are gaining widespread usage, but at a high cost to the end-user, particularly for the latter two tools. RedRose costs NGO's millions of dollars per year to maintain, and MPESA has been cited multiple times for over-charging its consumers. The key element that makes PUC different from other digital wallets is three things: (1) our solution works with low-literacy beneficiaries so it can be used by everyone, (2) our solution works in low-Internet connected environments, and (3) our solution leverages the feedback of both major NGOs from in-field pilots and beneficiary communities to ensure that we both understand the capabilities of the technology and the demands of helping the most vulnerable communities in the world. 

PUC has three parts, the Sempo application, the usage of stablecoins, and Emerging Impact's "Product Methodology" approach. Sempo is a decentralized application (dApp), built on the public Ethereum blockchain for the purpose of facilitating blockchain-enabled payments. The platform provides digital vouchers to recipients that can be redeemed by a registered, Know Your Customer-vetted list of vendors. A smart contract collateralizes these digital vouchers with an equivalent stablecoin value (i.e. a stable cryptocurrency typically pegged to the USD). Digital vouchers can only be accessed by registered recipients when redeeming their entitlement at a registered vendor. Sempo also has an off-ramp for verified vendors to convert digital vouchers back into cash.

The stablecoin used to guarantee, or collateralize the value of these vouchers. The linking of voucher value to a global reserve currency using smart contracts ensures that vouchers maintain a stable and equivalent value in local currency (i.e. USD) when transacted at the field level, thereby hedging against the risk of economic disruption or local currency devaluation, particularly in a crisis scenario. 

Emerging Impact's Product Methodology approach insulates the Sempo application to stakeholder-focused collateral to educate NGOs, local community leaders, and beneficiaries on how to use Sempo and merge their own program methodology with the use of the application. Such an approach bridges the knowledge gap between technologists and social impact practitioners and ensures that in-field best practices encapsulate the use and iteration of the dApp.

Project Unblocked Cash will enable NGOs and government agencies to leverage high functioning, bootstrappable social protection programming that will provide increased access to low-cost financial services. PUC seeks to solve issues of aid transparency, disbursement accountability, and the lack of financial infrastructure to connect the 'lost middle' to opportunities in the gradually evolving 'digital economy,' where savings accounts, loans, and investment opportunities can soon be accessed by the most rural consumers. PUC doesn't just provide a lightweight social protection solution, it provides a gateway for marginalized communities to access cost-efficient digital services that can be paid for using the Sempo application, including internet access and digital lending services. Thus, we seek to plant the tools needed for economic empowerment via social protection.  

PUC's theory of change model is as follows: 

Activities

• Leveraging Product Methodology - Educating NGOs, government agencies, community leaders, and beneficiaries about the PUC program 
  • Outputs
    • Key stakeholders understand how the technology works, the benefits to be gained, and the actions they need to take
      • Short-Term Outcomes
        • Stakeholders understand how to pilot technology 
      • Long-Term Outcomes
        • Stakeholders understand how to self-deploy the Project Unblocked Cash approach and expand it as needed

• Ensuring Stablecoin Usability - Selecting which stablecoins operate best in different regions wrt. social protection program deployment 
  • Outputs
    • Develop NGO policies for using stablecoins
    • Identify which stablecoins are best for different regions and cultures
      • Short-Term Outcomes
        • NGOs and govt. determine which stablecoins are most viable for their use regionally and deploy pilots using these stablecoins
      • Long-Term Outcomes
        • NGOs and govt. develop policies recognizing or emulating the use of digital currencies with the consideration of applying such technology to the modernization of social protection programming 

• Deploying Lightweight Financial Infrastructure - Deploy Sempo as the social protection programming tool in collaboration with community partners
  • Outputs
    • Pilot Sempo via Product Methodology approach in the field with community partners
    • Develop case study and generate holistic feedback 
    • Develop plan for expansion 
      • Short-Term Outcomes
        • Stakeholders understand how pilots works and how to improve system
      • Long-Term Outcomes
        • Stakeholders can expand custom usage of Sempo outside of just the context of humanitarian aid to other programs

Project Unblocked Cash's key value statement is being able to provide a high tech solution in low-tech, low-literacy, and low-Internet connectivity settings. Oftentimes, informal sector workers operate in such environments, and many technology solutions, lacking a social sector methodology approach and the ability to operate in low-literacy environments, cannot be adequately leveraged in these communities. 

The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of our approach is assessed at the TRL7 level (i.e. the system has been demonstrated in an operational environment). The most recent Unblocked Cash program, where we leveraged the Sempo platform in collaboration with Oxfam in Vanuatu, was initially rolled out as a pilot across two peri-urban communities comprising 187 direct recipients and 29 vendors, with a total caseload (including indirect recipients) of 1,209 individuals. Many of these individuals meet the same needs as those demonstrated in West Africa more broadly. Better yet, our teams invite stakeholder feedback on a continuous basis, all the way from NGO/government agency program leaders to program beneficiaries and we make such feedback a natural part of our processes. To reflect this, previous programs ensure that small scale community vendors were selected in order to reflect economic dynamics at the community level and inclusion of vendor profiles typically excluded in cash and voucher programs, which tend to privilege large vendors. Aid recipients were selected according to community-determined vulnerability criteria and included single mothers, elderly widows, people with disabilities and LGBTIQ+ individuals.

The PUC approach works with both banked and unbanked beneficiaries. The program’s hands-on community participation methodology, paired with the time and efficiency gains from using Sempo’s technology will effectively reduce the lead time for response and make the process of delivering cash assistance leaner, more responsive, and more transparent. This is expected to amplify the well-known impacts of assistance in the form of cash, including increased flexibility, dignity and choice for recipients. 

In the context of previous engagements, the automation of processes by this technology effectively allowed Oxfam and partner staff to focus more on including and consulting the community in the implementation process, improving local ownership and participation. Based on a Cash Transfer Feasibility study conducted in Vanuatu, Fiji and Solomon Islands (ongoing) this solution is particularly well adapted to the small-scale nature of community economies in the islands, and is deployable across the larger islands where mobile connectivity is available and where the majority of the population is concentrated. 

We believe that this solution bears the promise of increasing access to humanitarian assistance and changing the face of humanitarian assistance. This is particularly relevant in a region where delivery of assistance is typically slow and expensive. Transitioning to the Unblocked Cash model uses digital technology to enhance inclusion, promote localized delivery, multi-stakeholder coordination via a common platform, and full transparency on how funds are being delivered to whom and for what. 

Sempo's core infrastructure is open-sourced as GNU General Public License v3.0 and the team plans to do the same for our mobile app once they've completed a security audit. Likewise, Emerging Impact's Product Methodology framework will be made openly available to inquiring organizations that want to leverage and build upon our approach. We also try our best to readily publish pilot case studies and other research related to our findings so that those insights may be deployed in other contexts. 

The platform, vendor profile, and card-based system were exemplary of a new frontier in the software and blockchain space: community-based product iteration and development. This is unique because it is exceedingly rare that the blockchain and tech innovations space is reflective of the voices of marginalized communities living in urban centers, rural areas and in marginalized community contexts; as a result, products are often maladapted to their needs and preferences. 

Participation and inclusion are key features of Emerging Impact’s program approach and Sempo, the technology provider, has a core business philosophy that the platforms they offer must be reflected on contextual preferences in order to generate ownership and a positive user experience. This has allowed EI and Sempo, in partnership, to ensure a high level of transparency, community uptake and receptiveness in using this solution, thereby bridging existing gaps in digital inclusion,  technical, and reading/writing literacy. Users who reading/writing illiterate can easily use Sempo's Near Field Communication (NFC) card system, much like privileged consumers make use of their debit or credit card, without the need to understand QR codes or mobile applications all together. Such a system operates in low-connectivity environments, as vendor phones serve as a data cache for all transactions until Internet connectivity is made available.

Project Unblocked Cash, via the Sempo application, serve over 8,000 users today, including in Greece, Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, Vanuatu, Kenya, and soon in Venezuela. Ee should be serving over 100,000 people in a year's time, given that many of our initial pilots are now planning to expand. In five years, we hope to be serving 2 million people across multiple emerging markets in parallel. Our focus has specifically been those considered to be in the 'lost middle,' who are often technically and reading/writing illiterate and have limited access (if any) to Internet and data connectivity. Our vision of financial inclusion is attending to the needs of emerging markets first, rather than focusing in more developed regions. However, we certainly see strong use cases in those regions as well. Our hypothesis is that if we build for the most vulnerable communities, the platform will be easily deployable in communities with more resources. 

Project Unblocked Cash's impact goals are oriented around aid disbursed, the number of beneficiaries supported, the total number of transactions conducted on our platform, and, most importantly, the economic impact of the platform AFTER the social protection program has completed across each of the regions Sempo is being used. The latter is difficult to determine, and we are employing additional research to measure the turning point of a social protection program into a tool for economic empowerment. 

Goals in the next year

1. Reach 1M in total transactions conducted on the platform 
2. Scale to 20,000 beneficiaries supported 
3. Disburse $1M in total aid 
4. Finalize the first 'turn-key' iteration of both the Sempo application and EI's Product Methodology framework for responsible and autonomous use of other social sector practitioners

Goals in the next five years

1. Reach 20M in total transactions conducted on the platform 
2. Scale to 2M beneficiaries supported 
3. Disburse $20M in total aid 
4. Implement a government program (i.e. use of PUC in a unemployment insurance, supplemental nutrition assistance program, and/or housing voucher context, rather than just as humanitarian aid)
5. Integrate other digital solutions into a 'bootstrappable digital economy' with Sempo as the centerpiece for decentralized cash transfer, including the use of the Althea Network to increase access to Internet 

1-Year Obstacles

1. Capital - Limited operational capital to ensure multi-year runway 
2. Team Size - Small implementation teams
   1. Team members that speak multiple languages (beyond English, Spanish, and French)
3. Legal Support - Additional legal support for evolving nature of stablecoins and their usage in emerging markets as policies change  
4. Networking Capital - Limited (but growing!) networking capital in public and social sectors to continue scaling pilots into long-term contracted solutions 

5-Year Obstacles

1. Capital - Limited operational capital to ensure multi-year runway
2. Legal Support
   1. Additional legal support for evolving nature of stablecoins and their usage in emerging markets as policies change  
   2. Additional legal support to instantiate subsidiary organizations in various countries where platform expansion is occurring 
3. Networking Capital - Networking capital in public and social sectors to continue scaling pilots into long-term contracted solutions 
4. Central Bank Connection - Collaboration with Central Banks upon the normalized usage of central bank digital currencies 
5. Engineering - Additional engineering / project management resources to support exponentially increasing scale of platform and approach across multiple countries in parallel   

1. Capital - Limited operational capital to ensure multi-year runway 
   1. We are planning to potentially consolidate our teams and establish a private equity raise to finance operational growth as we support additional major NGOs and (hopefully) government agencies 
2. Team Size - Small implementation teams
   1. We have already identified excellent prospective employees to expand our work that have  mixture of engineering, humanitarian, and social sector consulting expertise 
3. Legal Support - Additional legal support for evolving nature of stablecoins and their usage in emerging markets as policies change  
   1. Currently, Sempo has a compliance lead and EI has several advisors, including some that have legal-crypto experience to help our team traverse changing market requirements, particularly around AML and Anti-terrorism laws  
4. Networking Capital - Limited (but growing!) networking capital in public and social sectors to continue scaling pilots into long-term contracted solutions 
   1. We are always growing our advisory board (while preventing conflicts of interest) so that our team and collective knowledge extends far beyond our own employees 

N/A

Emerging Impact has 3 employees and Sempo has four employees. 2 of EI's employees are full-time, one is part-time. All four employees of Sempo are full-time. Additionally, EI has six advisors, and Sempo has 4 advisors. 

Emerging Impact: Emerging Impact is a Delaware public benefit corporation dedicated to supporting NGOs, government agencies, and marginalized communities to leverage emerging technology in their social protection programming. Our team has led many of the world’s first pilots of blockchain technology being used for social impact and our founders have worked with the U.S. State Department, New America, the Red Cross, Oxfam, and the World Wildlife Fund,  among many others, to deploy digital solutions to a wide range of societal issues. Emerging Impact provides feasibility study development, technology education, pilot development, and pilot expansion services in partnership with technology providers to leverage software for good. EI's team consist of all minority co-founders, collectively fluent in three languages with engineering, humanitarian, business, and product design backgrounds. 

Sempo.ai (technology provider): Is a Fintech start-up founded in 2017, working at the intersection between humanitarian aid, technology and financial services. Our vision is a world where financial services are accessible to anyone, and our mission is to build open ecosystems that connect financially isolated communities with each other, and the global economy. The Sempo platform has facilitated cash-aid to vulnerable people in locations such as Greece, Iraqi Kurdistan, Lebanon, and Vanuatu.  The Sempo team is a diverse mix of technical and humanitarian professionals, with backgrounds in engineering, finance, risk and compliance, and international development.

Emerging Impact (the application submitting organization) partners directly with Sempo on all social protection programing engagements. Our services compliment the other and extend our operational / technical capabilities. 

Our collective business model is as follows

1. EI is a services based business that provides pilot education, management, and expansion services on an hourly basis ($100 - $150 / hour, but also packaged depending on client needs)
   1. Advising - depends on program scale
   2. Project Management - depends on program scale
   3. Sempo Certification - $5,000 per 10 people to learn how to use Sempo 
2. Sempo leverages a two-fee structure, which will evolve into a simple, turn-key subscription model as time progresses
   1. Set-up fee - Amount assessed to set up a new instance of Sempo for the program (typically $10,000 to $20,000)
   2. Subscription fee - $5,000 per month per agency/country office 

Our teams are re-investing revenues generated from developing and scaling the Project Unblocked Cash program in multiple regions to support operational expenses and expand our internal capabilities (technology and otherwise). Once we have bridged all gaps within our emerging digital social protection methodology (processes and services needed by NGO and government partners alike) we will begin to fundraise a round. Currently we are supplementing increasing revenue growth with the integral use of grants, having applied both to this opportunity and the EU Commission's Horizon Summit Challenge, which has yet to announce the final winners due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Emerging Impact

• Revenue (Pre-Incorporation Outside of ConsenSys, as ConsenSys Social Impact) - $600,000+
• Revenue (Post-Incorporation Outside of ConsenSys) FY2020 - $234,000
• $0 raise in equity 

Sempo

• $525,000 raise in equity
• $0 debt
• $300,000 total revenue FY2020

Collectively, we are seeking to raise at least $3M in equity and grants (no debt). We hope to make this raise by the Summer of 2021. 

EI Current Expenses

• $200 /month operational expenses (applications that support operations)
• $4500 / month employee expenses 

Sempo Expenses

• $5,727 / month total burn 

Total Projected Expenses (EI + Sempo)

• $25k/month operational burn 

EI and Sempo are applying to the Mission Billion Challenge WURI West Africa Prize because we see it as an amazing opportunity to scale our platform into additional emerging markets in a region where we have yet to gain additional community stakeholder feedback (and implement potential impact!). We have yet to realize an opportunity in West Africa, despite previous work in East Africa. We are in this journey for the long run in an effort to benefit those who need access to financial services most. We want to enable everyone to be able to use high-technology by making it usable in every circumstance possible. 

• NGOs - Implement PUC as new digital cash aid methodology that can be adopted and changed by major NGOs in their own international programming to scale our platform's usage. 
• Government Agencies - Map PUC to government programs that are closely related (i.e. unemployment, nutrition assistance, housing aid, etc.)
• Emerging Market Central Banks - Work to develop social sector policies and partnerships so that digital cash aid can operate without regulations that inhibit it from helping those most in need (while maintaining accountability)

Partner with the World Bank to (1) exponentially increase aid disbursement scale across multiple regions in parallel and gain additional exposure to potential NGO and government partners, and (2) co-develop stablecoin-as-aid policy that serves as the undercurrent of new-age social protection programming. Additional partnerships include with UNHCR, USAID, and other major cash-aid oriented organizations. The latter partnerships will expand our programming scale from the hundreds of thousands of dollars disbursed to the hundreds of millions. Additionally, we have been looking at unemployment insurance, refugee aid, and EBT departments in local US government to see how the technology and approach can be applied in that context as well.