Jordan Refugee Camp runs on Some individuals walk with their
Jordan Refugee Camp runs on
Some individuals walk with their shopping carts, containing eatables in a retail grocery store. They go to the payment counter but don’t pay in cash or using a credit/debit card. Instead, they are made to go through an iris scan, some technological thing and their payments are settled.
Well, these individuals are none other than the Syrian refugees living in Jordan getting their food with the aid of World Food Programme (WFP), food assistance branch of the United Nations. The iris scan & some technological thing points to Blockchain Technology. Their payments are settled using the cash they are entitled to in the form of digital money by WFP.
This approach is quite different from a traditional method which involves physical food supply chains or third parties like banks, Now the question arises:
WHAT + WHY: BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY?
Blockchain technology can be simply defined as a ledger keeping records intensely linked and secured using cryptography. This contains building blocks in which all the transactions are recorded and copied over many nodes, making it difficult to edit or alter without the committees permission.
Its use is quite economical. Yes, this technology saves approximately 1.5- 3% per refugee which usually goes as bank fee because now there is no third party in between. The refugees pay through the digital wallet allotted to them directly by WFP. This saving adds up and is capable of feeding thousands of hungry people. In addition to this, it is very transparent as it eliminates any possibility of middle-men processing.
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Jordan refugee camps running on blockchain mark a success of this experiment done by WFP. Houman Haddad, the UN executive behind Building Blocks and its implementation at Jordan Refugee Camps sees a lot more potential in this technology and talks about it as an Identity system through which these people can be linked to the mainstream of the world because identity becomes a big issue for the refugees. This is a future perspective on which research is going on, but the present one is also not less phenomenal as it proves again: |
Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity. ~Nikola Tesla
Blockchain, which was formerly linked to Bitcoin and the tech world is actively helping to tackle social causes like hunger. This should be seen as a mini-revolution in the betterment of society. Blockchain may solve an unsolved problem as researchers say and we believe!