In this episode, Mehran discusses how UNICEF is leveraging blockchain to alleviate some of the world's social issues. Learn more about UNICEF's blockchain initiatives both internally and externally to optimize efficiency and improve tranparency and accountability across multi-stakeholder environments. He goes indepth to talk about the vavious usecases for blockchain within the social impact space using examples of projects from the UNICEF Venture Fund and the UNICEF Crypto fund (supported by the Ethereum Foundation), and shares some of the implementation challenges faced.

Why is it valuable to look at how we design for communities that have remained largely underserved in tech? Learn how and why UNICEF is playing such a big role in advocating for blockchain-powered future, and why we need to bring the user back to the center of design in blockchain.

Check out the graduate startups from the first cohort of the UNICEF Innovation Fund:

Coinsence: Utopixar developed a platform that enables collaborations amongst communities and organisations to facilitate participative decision making and value transfer.
Prescrypto: Prescrypto is providing a digital solution to the lack of electronic prescriptions in developing countries with a platform that allows medical service providers to view one common history of a patient, and improve the level of care.
Statwig: Statwig is using a blockchain-based solution to ensure the efficient logistics delivery of vaccines through an enhanced supply-chain management system.
W3 Engineers: W3 Engineers built a mobile connectivity platform. It allows users within the network to give connectivity access to other users directly between smartphones, instead of relying on internet and cell networks.
Atix Labs: Atix Labs developed the Circle of Angels platform for small to medium-sized enterprises to gain access to funding, while creating traceability in where the funds are used and measuring impact.
OS City: OS City is a company that uses blockchain and artificial intelligence to help city authorities provide digital services. Its purpose is to improve governments’ efficiency and trust, aiming to build a more sustainable future.

About Mehran Hydary
Mehran is currently a designing and building blockchain software for global issues at UNICEF. He started his blockchain career at Deloitte where he was scaling their technology delivery team while working closely with clients to understand how blockchain can be used in various industries. His previous experience also includes TD Bank, Hydro One, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Mehran studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto in Canada.

About UNICEF Innovation
UNICEF Innovation is an interdisciplinary team of individuals around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling technologies and practices that strengthen UNICEF's work. We build and scale innovations that improve children's lives around the world. For more information about UNICEF's work in innovation, visit: www.unicef.org/innovation and www.unicefstories.org.

Special Guest: Mehran Hydary.

KC Tam is a widely regarded expert in the Fabric world that has written extensively about his learning during his journey in blockchain. His deep dive articles of Fabric 2.0 that present cross comparisons between 1.0 and 2.0 are some of the earliest to have been written since its launch. In this episode, Ashlie speaks to KC Tam on the key changes introduced in Hyperledger Fabric 2.0 and his take on the value of these improvements.

Read KC's writing on Hyperledger Fabric 2.0
First Attempt on Chaincode Operation in Hyperledger Fabric Release 2.0
Illustrating Endorsement Policy in Lifecycle Chaincode (Hyperledger Fabric Release 2.0)
Changing Endorsement Policy and Chaincode Upgrade After Chaincode Committed (Hyperledger Fabric 2.0)
From “First Network” to “Test Network”: A New Test Network introduced in Fabric v2.0

About KC Tam

KC is the founder of LedgerTech, mainly providing blockchain consulting and training service to various types of clients. He is also an instructor and training material developer at Blockchain Educators, providing classroom training on various blockchain topics, and a part-time lecturer at City University of Hong Kong. He speaks in many blockchain events and webinars, and publishes articles regularly on blockchain topics, from concepts to hands-on practice, receiving more than 15,000 views each month. His interest is to explore how blockchain platforms work, and how blockchain applications help in the business world. His focus is on Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum. Prior to his blockchain journey, he also spent almost 10 years in cloud consulting roles in both Cisco and Ericsson.

Special Guest: KC Tam.

Singapore has often been cited to be a leading hub for blockchain projects as a result of its thriving blockchain ecosysem and favourable regulatory environment. In this epsiode, Veronica Tan and Yi Ming Ng describe the state of blockchain adoption in Singapore from both public and private perspectives, including government involvement, the various stakeholders, and past and future challenges. They also talk about both government and industry responses to tackling these barriers, emphasizing the need for a multi-stakeholder approach.

At the Singapore Fintech Festival, IMDA and Tribe are announcing the launch of OpenNodes, a new content platform built to foster a hyperconnected blockchain ecosystem through collaboration and education. In October, they published the Singapore Blockchain Landscape Map, that provides an overview of various blockchain companies and initiatives that are pioneering the application of blockchain technology to various use cases in Singapore.

-

Veronica is from the Technology & Infrastructure Group in IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) Her work revolves around master planning and strategy development of frontier technologies such as blockchain, that are relevant for Singapore to realise its vision to be a leading digital economy in the world. Veronica was previously involved in IDA’s Smart Nation efforts, overseeing the development of Smart Nation infrastructure to enable data-driven decision making for Singapore.

Yi Ming is the Managing Partner of Tribe Accelerator, Singapore’s First Government Supported Blockchain Accelerator to facilitate the mass adoption of blockchain technology in startups. Yi Ming too serves as a partner at TRIVE, an early stage Southeast Asia (SEA) focused Venture Capital firm based in Singapore, which invests in technology startups from Seed to Series A rounds of funding in various domains. This includes Deep Technologies, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Marketplaces and FinTech.

-

About Open Nodes
Open Nodes is an ecosystem platform that connects companies to blockchain solutions providers and serves educational content to enterprise leaders and policymakers. Learn more at https://opennodes.com/. Access the Singapore Ecosystem Report here.

About IMDA
The Info-communications and Media Development Authority (IMDA) develops and regulates the converging infocomm and media sectors in a holistic way, creating a dynamic and exciting sector filled with opportunities for growth, through an emphasis on talent, research, innovation and enterprise. As a statutory board in the Singapore government, it seeks to deepen regulatory capabilities for a converged infocomm media. Learn more at https://www.imda.gov.sg/

About Tribe Accelerator
Tribe Accelerator is the first Singapore government supported blockchain accelerator, championing to be a neutral platform in driving collaboration and growth of the blockchain ecosystem. The product development focused accelerator aims to provide promising startups a hyperconnected platform to develop innovative solutions together with our network of global corporations, government agencies and top blockchain companies. Tribe Accelerator is backed by some of the world's leading organisations including AXA, BMW Group Asia, Citibank, ConsenSys, Ethereum Foundation, EY, IBM, Intel, Nielsen, PwC, R3, Temasek, Ubisoft and others. Learn more at :https://tribeaccelerator.co/

Special Guests: Veronica Tan and Yi Ming Ng.

In episode 2, Ashlie speaks to Tom Menner, the director of solution architecture in APAC at R3. Tom gives an in-depth introduction of R3, Corda, and everything in between. He talks about several exciting solutions being built on Corda today across supply chain, digital asset, trade finance, and insurance, and discusses how Corda is powering some of the largest enterprise blockchain consortiums such (Voltron, Marco Polo, B3i, Monetago). Tom is fond of comparing blockchain to plumbing and he thinks that everyone needs to stop talking about blockchain.

Tom Menner is R3’s Solution Architect for the Asia Pacific region, based in Singapore. His focus is to translate clients’ functional and non-functional business and technical requirements into a solution designs. In addition to architecture work Tom is a frequent speaker at blockchain and industry conferences, and is a technical ambassador in Asia for blockchain and cryptocurrency technology meetups. Prior to joining R3 Tom had a lengthy career at IBM, most recently working on Hyperledger Fabric but also supporting e-commerce solutions in B2B integration, electronic payments, and digital marketing. Prior to that he was a Worldwide Middleware Architect for IBM, leading design efforts for global clients on middleware and data solutions and earning assignments in Japan and China. He had his start as a consultant for Transarc, a Pittsburgh-based transaction processing technology startup.

About R3
R3 is an enterprise blockchain software firm working with a global ecosystem of more than 300 participants across multiple industries from both the private and public sectors to develop on Corda, its open-source blockchain platform, and Corda Enterprise, a commercial version of Corda for enterprise usage.

R3’s global team of over 200 professionals in 13 countries is supported by over 2,000 technology, financial, and legal experts drawn from its vibrant ecosystem. The Corda platform is already being used in industries from financial services to healthcare, shipping, insurance and more. It records, manages and executes institutions’ financial agreements in perfect synchrony with their peers, creating a world of frictionless commerce. Learn more at www.r3.com and www.corda.net.

Special Guest: Tom Menner.

Eugene Aseev is the CTO and co-founder of Chainstack, a multi-cloud and multi-protocol Blockchain Platform as a Serivce. He has over 10 years of experience building and leading top R&D teams on a global scale in organizations like GeoEdge and Acronis. He has strong roots in engineering, cybersecurity, and research, with more than 10 years of experience in leading top R&D teams on a global scale. He began actively experimenting with blockchain over 3 years ago when researching on blockchain for data protection and has built production-grade solutions on Ethereum during his time as the VP of engineering at Acronis. His experience has inspired him to radically simplify blockchain deployment and implementation to accelerate blockchain adoption. Eugene has spoken extensively on enterprise blockchain implementation and distributed ledger security.

Where you can find Eugene:
Website: https://chainstack.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/toxzique
Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/easeev

Special Guest: Eugene Aseev.