Open Conversations: You Can't Blockchain Your Way to Global Impact (Teo Petricevic, UNDP AltFinLab)
Funding the Commons Open Conversations · 2:33
Teo Petricevic of UNDP's Alternative Finance Lab says blockchain work with the UN needs to move from pilots to larger projects. He describes a pipeline of 150 initiatives, mostly tied to Ethereum and to UNICEF and UNHCR programs, with UNDP acting as an ecosystem builder. His two messages to blockchain communities are to keep their principles and values when dealing with big players like the UN and governments, and to collaborate within and beyond their own communities, including across chains.
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From Funding the Commons Open Conversations, hosted by Funding the Commons.
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We need to move from pilots to projects now. Of course, it's evolving lots of funding and you know, more established multi-year partnerships, but yeah, we need organizations or the network of organizations that can build something big. Big in terms that they can solve global challenges. I'm Theo. I work for UNDP Alternative Finance Lab and we are based in the Istanbul Regional Hub and basically we are developing different kind of new funding mechanisms for different stakeholders around the world. So, basically with UNDP AltFinLab we started developing multiple partnerships across emerging tech industries. We are focusing now fully on the blockchain ecosystems because we see that they can bring huge value to the UN ecosystem in terms of efficiency and transparency of
the work, etc. So, currently we have the pipeline of 150 initiatives. Most of them are connected to the Ethereum ecosystem, especially from the side of the UNICEF Ventures program, the UNHCR and UNDP is now acting more as a ecosystem builder. So, basically we all like to establish these long-term partnerships and give UN ecosystem and all 20+ UN agencies access to the solutions builders, developers that can bring it up. They're working in many fields, but now we need to scale this and we cannot do that alone because UN is always acting as an intermediary or integrator or some kind of the messenger, I would say, between different sectors. That's why I think blockchain industry should also think how they can collaborate with
other stakeholders that are involved, being non-profits or societies, the governments across the UN agencies, and how we can build something together. I think there are two most important messages to blockchain communities. First of all, don't sell your principles and values, whatever it's happening. You need to stick to your core identity because working big players like UN and governments, etc., could question the the The second thing is collaboration within the communities, but also outside our communities. I think that cross-chain collaboration should happen as soon as possible. We still don't have so many, I would say, big players in the blockchain
industry that can solve the problems that we are dealing with alone. So, without the collaboration and you know, co-designing and co-implementing the new initiatives, I wouldn't say that some big changes will happen.