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Evernym Cuts Deal with Red Cross and other Nonprofits Who Will Work with their Self-Sovereign Digital ID Solution

Richard Kastelein

January 30, 2019

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Self-Sovereign Identity solutions provider Evernym has announced five recipients of its first-ever Identity for Good Initiative (ID4G). The Initiative gives select nonprofit organizations access to its technology Accelerator, which regularly costs $50,000 a year and offers new technology, advanced digital identity tools, education and support for building digital ID.

The five recipients are the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), DECODES, iRespond, Rohingya Project and Tykn.

“The humanitarian community exists in a bubble, so access to an existing community of experts and new technologies to help us better serve communities in crisis is an amazing opportunity,” said Nathan Cooper, Senior Adviser at Red Cross.

“We hit the realization that we can no longer do this with a spreadsheet and beneficiary ID cards. We need something more sustainable, something people can establish, create, hold, and access their identities. It brings dignity, choice and economic stimulus to the local markets where humanitarian aid is needed,” said Caroline Holt, head of global cash distribution, Red Cross.

“Our ID for Good Initiative gives NGOs that are on the frontlines of some of the world’s most pressing demands for digital identity an opportunity to participate in a technological revolution at no cost,” said Timothy Ruff, CEO of Evernym. “We’re happy to be bringing together NGOs, governments and commercial interests alike to increase access to necessary technologies and accelerate innovation for Self-Sovereign Identity. Representation among the nonprofit community is essential for the diversity of thought and deployments.

One of the most recognized recipients of the ID for Good grant is the Red Cross. It is the largest distributor of humanitarian cash in the world and has given out nearly $1B in 2017. That’s why its decision to use blockchain to create digital IDs for its millions of constituents has become an organization-wide priority. After assessing multiple digital ID solutions, it sought to become part of the Evernym ID for Good Initiative largely because the company’s technology doesn’t store personally identifiable data on the blockchain.

The World Bank estimates more than 1 billion persons, usually the most vulnerable, are without formal identity. This prevents them from asserting their rights, receiving benefits, keeping their families together, and sometimes affects their very safety. Digital identity is seen as a key solution to this problem. This is especially true thanks to some of the latest advances in the field of Decentralized Identity and one of its more intriguing implementations, Self Sovereign Identity. Many humanitarian-focused organizations are eager to study this technology and determine its applicability for their own mission, but many balk for budgetary reasons.

To learn more about the ID for Good Initiative, please visit: https://www.evernym.com/identityforgood

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About Richard Kastelein

Founder and publisher of industry publication Blockchain News (EST 2015), a partner at ICO services collective Token.Agency ($750m+ and 90+ ICOs and STOs), director of education company Blockchain Partners (Oracle Partner) – Vancouver native Richard Kastelein is an award-winning publisher, innovation executive and entrepreneur. He sits on the advisory boards of some two dozen Blockchain startups and has written over 1500 articles on Blockchain technology and startups at Blockchain News and has also published pioneering articles on ICOs in Harvard Business Review and Venturebeat. Irish Tech News put him in the top 10 Token Architects in Europe.

Kastelein has an Ad Honorem - Honorary Ph.D. and is Chair Professor of Blockchain at China's first Blockchain University in Nanchang at the Jiangxi Ahead Institute of Software and Technology. In 2018 he was invited to and attended University of Oxford's Saïd Business School for Business Automation 4.0 programme. Over a half a decade experience judging and rewarding some 1000+ innovation projects as an EU expert for the European Commission's SME Instrument programme as a startup assessor and as a startup judge for the UK government's Innovate UK division.

Kastelein has spoken (keynotes & panels) on Blockchain technology in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Barcelona, Beijing, Brussels, Bucharest, Dubai, Eindhoven, Gdansk, Groningen, the Hague, Helsinki, London (5x), Manchester, Minsk, Nairobi, Nanchang, Prague, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara (2x), Shanghai, Singapore (3x), Tel Aviv, Utrecht, Venice, Visakhapatnam, Zwolle and Zurich.

He is a Canadian (Dutch/Irish/English/Métis) whose writing career has ranged from the Canadian Native Press (Arctic) to the Caribbean & Europe. He's written occasionally for Harvard Business Review, Wired, Venturebeat, The Guardian and Virgin.com, and his work and ideas have been translated into Dutch, Greek, Polish, German and French. A journalist by trade, an entrepreneur and adventurer at heart, Kastelein's professional career has ranged from political publishing to TV technology, boatbuilding to judging startups, skippering yachts to marketing and more as he's travelled for nearly 30 years as a Canadian expatriate living around the world. In his 20s, he sailed around the world on small yachts and wrote a series of travel articles called, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Seas' travelling by hitching rides on yachts (1989) in major travel and yachting publications. He currently lives in Groningen, Netherlands where he's raising three teenage daughters with his wife and sailing partner, Wieke Beenen.

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