Eight tech startups from seven different developing economies will receive an investment of Ethereum cryptocurrency from the UNICEF Cryptocurrency Fund.
UNICEF’s crypto-enabled investment vehicle has given these companies 125 ETH, worth approximately $28,600.
UNICEF #Cryptocurrency Fund announces its largest investment of startups in emerging economies. Among the awardees are companies expanding work to use their technologies to mitigate the hardships of #COVID19 on children and youth.@UNICEFinnovate https://t.co/4wTVnYWNEI — UNICEFmedia (@UNICEFmedia) June 19, 2020
The funds are to be used in scaling or prototyping their respective technologies over the next six months.
The companies receiving the investment have already received over $100,000 in fiat currency from UNICEF’s Innovation Fund.
UNICEF Ventures co-lead Chris Fabian in a statement:
“We are seeing the digital world come at us more quickly than we could have imagined – and UNICEF must be able to use all of the tools of this new world to help children today and tomorrow.”
Fabian adds:
“The transfer of these funds – to eight companies in seven countries around the world – took less than 20 minutes and cost us less than $20. Almost instant global movement of value, fees of less than 0.00009% of the total amount transferred, and real-time transparency for our donors and supporters are the types of tools we are excited about.”
One such company, Afinidata offers educational content to parents with young children.
Cireha, builds communication systems for children with speech or language impairments to use in the offline world.
UNICEF is a United Nations organization, protecting the wellbeing of children around the world, while simultaneously working for a better future.
These are companies with a mission, and UNICEF is giving them cryptocurrency-enabled momentum to carry that mission further forward.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Unsplash