Whereas the motivations of hypothesis and standing could reign inside the NFT group, there’s one other use case for Web3 tasks that has been on show this yr — social good.
NFT collections, metaverse activations and DAO fundraisers can all be leveraged to boost cash for charitable causes, from environmental tasks to humanitarian initiatives.
This vacation season, Blockworks rounded up among the high examples of metaverse activations and NFT tasks used for social good in 2022.
Preserving cultural heritage
Quantum Temple is a startup that’s trying to leverage Web3 to guard and protect the cultural heritage of communities around the globe.
By documenting tradition and traditions within the type of NFTs, Quantum Temple hopes to boost consciousness and enchantment to aware collectors and vacationers who want to assist these communities. These digital belongings are curated and verified by anthropologists.
UNESCO defines cultural heritage as oral traditions and expressions, performing arts, rituals and festive occasions, information and practices regarding nature and the universe, and conventional craftsmanship.
For instance, one of many first tasks, presently in improvement, is a group of cultural heritage NFTs targeted on Bali, Indonesia that characteristic the ‘Cendrawasih’ dance, that means the dance of the ‘Hen of Paradise.’ This ritual comes from Legong, a refined classical dance in Bali, and is predicated on the courtship rituals of Cendrawasih birds.
Professor Steve Lansing and adviser to the undertaking mentioned that this method “opens up new methods for communities to share their heritage with the world and generates new income streams to straight profit communities and artists” through NFT proceeds.
Movies of the Cendrawasih dance can be preserved for posterity on the Ethereum and Algorand blockchains and can profit the Legong Dance Faculty in Se Bali. Video and picture information are saved on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) distributed file storage protocol, the Quantum Temple staff mentioned, a widespread approach for NFTs tasks involving media.
One of many dancers featured within the assortment, Ni Kadek Virna Erikayani, mentioned that she needs “the worldwide group to raised perceive my dwelling tradition and values, in order that we will develop to respect one another, assist one another, and perceive one another.”
Web3 schooling
Upland, an EOS blockchain-based metaverse platform that’s linked to geographical international locations and cities, partnered with UNICEF Brazil to develop a digital Web3 academy that gives expertise coaching to Brazilian younger adults.
Two UNICEF-branded constructions have been constructed within the digital Rio de Janeiro on Upland and a vacation NFT fundraiser is underway. Customers can buy the UNICEF Winter Gnomes and UNICEF Winter Ornaments to brighten their Upland properties and properties.
The sale’s proceeds can be used as a direct donation to the United Nations Kids’s Fund, together with devoted funds to assist and sponsor the teaching programs of UNICEF in Brazil, in accordance to Upland.
UNICEF didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
Roughly 50% of proceeds from the Upland fundraiser energy UNICEF’s One Million Alternatives (1MiO) program, which supplies alternatives for skilled coaching, employability and earnings era for younger adults (from 14 to 29 years previous) in conditions of vulnerability.
College students can be each bodily and nearly educated within the fundamentals of Web3, blockchain expertise, sensible contracts and metaverse fundamentals, based on Upland.
Programs will train college students digital expertise on the subject of utilizing the Upland metaverse, in addition to the right way to apply these studying to crypto staking, tokenization and different Web3 associated schooling. There can even be lessons to study entrepreneurial expertise and on the right way to establish job alternatives within the metaverse economic system and Web3 trade.
Healthcare in Africa
NFTs are getting used to sort out the UN’s sustainable improvement targets on the subject of healthcare. The Ladies in Innovation Fund (WiN Fund), co-founded by Reckitt, is utilizing the proceeds from NFTs gross sales to spend money on women-led healthcare startups in Africa, addressing the UN’s third such objective — good well being and well-being.
The advantages of blockchain for healthcare and democracy are being explored in international locations with unstable management.
Ladies are extra attuned to the healthcare wants of their group, based on Corinne Momal-Vanian, the chief director of the Kofi Annan Basis. “Ladies entrepreneurs — from what we’ve seen in Africa — can drive innovation, can drive effectivity and may actually have a spot within the healthcare ecosystem that governments can’t fill,” she mentioned at a UN-adjacent roundtable dialogue in New York in September.
WiN Fund co-founder Pradeep Kakkattil, pointed to a worrying statistic: Solely 2% of enterprise capital investments globally go to women-led enterprises, even though women-led companies ship 35% greater returns and create 6 occasions extra jobs.
Celebrating variations
The Sandbox and the group Individuals of Crypto Lab (POC) debuted the ‘Valley of Belonging.’’ They described it as a ‘cultureverse’ or a variety, fairness and inclusivity hub within the metaverse that highlights the significance of an equitable Web3 group. Meaning utilizing their digital area to amplify creators, builders and types that characterize folks of all races, ethnicity and backgrounds.
Their first undertaking onboarded the cosmetics model NYX Skilled Make-up in The Sandbox to have a good time Delight Month through an 8,430 NFT avatar assortment that includes voxelized make-up appears on the avatars.
Avatar traits included over 36 pores and skin shades and eight NYX appears to point out that make-up has no gender or sexual orientation. Extra customizable traits ranged from prosthetic limbs to varied Muslim head coverings such because the hijab.
This activation even sought to characterize handicapped group members by together with non-player characters (NPCs) in wheelchairs, guiding gamers via particular quests and mini video games.
NYX donated 100% of its proceeds amounting to $50,000 from the bought out sale of the avatar NFTs to the Los Angeles LGBT Heart.
Wildlife conservation
Netherlands-based decentralized carbon credit score change Coorest and conservation consulting agency PLCnetwork of the Southern Hemisphere teamed as much as tokenize particular person real-world endangered animals at sport reserves and privately owned conservation areas in Africa. These wildlife NFTs allow holders to sponsor an elephant, lion, cheetah or rhino. Income from the gross sales will go towards meals, shelter and safety for the animals they characterize.
Coorest — greatest identified for working an NFTrees CO2 compensation system that tokenizes yield-bearing belongings or bonds and carbon credit which can be tradable on the blockchain — partnered with PLCnetwork of the Southern Hemisphere with connections to wildlife reserves in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana.
In accordance with PLCnetwork founder Dr. Julia Baum, the principle challenge with on the bottom wildlife conservation is that “it’s expensive and assets are sometimes very restricted.” Even for a personal reserve with a typically larger price range, the price of taking good care of an African bush elephant, for instance, could be very costly as a result of it contains fencing, monitoring, 24-hour anti-poaching patrols and veterinary assist.
Proudly owning an “elephaNFT” or a “lioNFT” doesn’t give possession over the animals, reasonably it supplies month-to-month “proof-of-life” verification that the animal remains to be alive. The metadata of every NFT comprises details about the species, age and gender, particular to every tokenized animal. Holders can even be invited to go to the wildlife reserve and meet the animals. 70% of the funds from these Wildlife NFTs go to the sport reserve or conservation space, with the funds launched on a month-to-month or set schedule.
Assist for Ukraine
Crypto donors flocked in the direction of Ukraine supporting causes when the Russian-Ukraine conflict began in February, and examined the facility of DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) as fundraising instruments.
Ukraine DAO ended up elevating $8 million in solely a few days from the sale of an NFT of the Ukrainian flag. Proceeds went in the direction of nonprofits and non-governmental organizations. Ukrainian-born activist Alona Shevchenko reached out to Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova to arrange the group.
After solely two weeks of battle, over 102,000 crypto asset donations, totaling $54.7 million in ether, bitcoin and tether, had been tracked, supporting the Ukrainian authorities and Come Again Alive, an NGO offering assist to the army.
The federal government turned to Twitter to ask folks to donate crypto. It even based a nonprofit conflict fund — Assist For Ukraine — which reported spending $54 million of its crypto donations on army {hardware} by August. Based by Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation in March, round $11 million went to unmanned aerial autos, adopted carefully by armor vests, laptop {hardware} and software program.
One other group that raised an emergency response fund for Ukraine is The Giving Block — a crypto donation platform that gives charities with back-end assist.
In accordance with The Giving Block, ether was the most-donated cryptocurrency in 2021, totaling $30.79 million.
2022 noticed numerous extra Web3 tasks and fundraising efforts as blockchain expertise sought to affect all types of industries from schooling and healthcare to magnificence. Whether or not it’s NFT or DAO fundraisers or metaverse activations, blockchain expertise has its benevolent facet.
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