MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

YOUVERIFY

One-line solution summary:

A platform that enables individuals to self-enrol into an Identity program either using their foundational ID or their biometrics remotely

Pitch your solution.

We aimed to bring individuals regardless of their social status into a digital identity platform that will allow them to be economically and socially included.

Primarily, We achieve this by enabling individuals to create a digital identity based on our self-sovereign identity platform using the existing foundational ID available to the individual through our mobile app or SMS. In event that a foundational ID is not available, we empower an agent to help them enrol or allow them to self-enrol (Name, Mobile Number, Facial image and fingerprints) directly into the digital identity platform using a mobile app that captures fingerprints and validates facial liveness check via the phone's camera only without the need for external fingerprint hardware.

Identity issues create a gap for Financial and economic inclusion in our region, our solution bridges this gap and makes it easy for individuals and finance providers to enrol and verify identity respectively.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

We are solving the identity interoperability and identity verification problem that limits the scale and efficiency of micro saving or pension programs, social intervention programs and government-to-person (G2P) payments across the region.

Our approach is

What is the scale of the problem in the communities you are working in, and regionally? How many people are affected? Which factors contributing to the problem relate to your solution? Include any relevant local or regional statistics.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

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Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Deploying features that use regionally interoperable foundational ID systems and can be accessed across borders, network providers, and languages — allowing workers to receive services and make contributions or withdrawals regardless of origin or location

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.

In addition to this, you need to know more about it.

Where is your solution team headquartered?

Lagos, Nigeria

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Prototype: An individual or organization building and testing a product, service, or model.

Who is the primary delegate for your solution?

Gbenga Odegbami

More About Your Solution

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new application of an existing technology

Describe what makes your solution innovative.

Existing players in the region typically focused on using dedicated devices like fingerprint scanners, digital camera, PCs and agent network for enrollment or recently, a dedicated mobile app platform that only captures facial biometrics, prior to participation in social intervention program. Our innovation replaces all the hardware requirement with a smartphone based platform that allows the individual or an agent to enrol the subject and capture their fingerprints securely via the camera of the smartphone for individuals without any form of ID. For individuals with ID, our innovation rides our on data aggregation backend of our platform that enable to harmonize any government issued identity to create a digital identity for the purpose of enrolment remotely and seamlessly.

Provide evidence that your solution works.

A mobile platform that enables compliant identity enrolment and verification either by empowering users to self-enrol their biometrics using the phone camera or SMS-based. We achieve this by enabling our mobile platform with a state-of-the-art deep learning capability, That Allows It To Quickly recognise a finger or fingers in the camera field of view, automatically captures the fingerprints When It's in focus, and Quickly segment it for image processing instead of a dedicated fingerprint scanner hardware. We then integrate to any existing automated fingerprint identification systems (“AFIS”) for deduplication purposes. If the subject already have an existing identity from other authorities like driver license etc., we use our data aggregation infrastructure to match the data in the field and harmonise it with the new register seamlessly without a need for a new enrolment. Individuals with existing IDs can initiate the data harmonisation via SMS but giving us a consent to harmonise their data.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
GIS and Geospatial Technology
Imaging and Sensor Technology
Software and Mobile Applications

What is your theory of change?

It is assumed that by making it identity enrolment easier, more accessible and affordable it will lead to increase the participation of individuals in social intervention programs thereby improving their social economic status. This we achieve by enabling individuals to enrol their Identity via SMS if they have an existing ID and also self-enrol in a compliant manner, if they have a smartphone, we believe that we can drive this change.

How can your solution be incorporated into social protection and service delivery systems in West Africa?

Our solution can be use for enrolment and verification onto a social protection and service delivery systems easily as part of the onboarding process thereby increasing the program scale and accessibility.

Describe how 'user friendly' your solution is to incorporate into social protection programs and delivery systems in West Africa.

If you can use a smartphone you can use our service to self-enrolment via the mobile app and if you have a feature phone and an existing ID, you can use our SMS medium for data harmonisation.

Explain how your solution is interoperable with existing technologies and open standards.

We use standard Restful API which makes us interoperable to majority of existing systems and standards. Our fingerprint SDK generates an output imagery in standard formats i.e. ISO or proprietary templates, or WSQ of the processed image.

How does your solution account for low connectivity environments and for users with low literacy and numeracy levels?

We need connectivity for deduplication purposes if required and data harmonisation if real-time harmonisation is required. Any scenario outside this does not require real-time connectivity and the operations can be performed on the mobile phone end to end. We also built our platform in a manner that data can be harmonised with the backend at a later time when connectivity is available.

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Informal Sector Workers
Low-Income
Middle-Income

Do you already operate in one or several countries in West Africa? If so, which ones?

Ghana
Nigeria

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Côte d'Ivoire
Gabon
Gambia, The
Nigeria
Senegal
Togo

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

We estimate that we will be able to serve 300m people in the next 5 years. At the moment, our service is available to 150m people.

What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?

Our goal is to deepen our technology and partner with government agencies and institutions to drive our mission across the region

What barriers currently exist for you to accomplish your goals in the next year and in the next five years?

Access to government partners and developmental agencies

How do you plan to overcome these barriers?

By partnering with Developmental agencies.

About Your Team

Your Business Model & Funding

Partnership & Prize Funding Opportunities