Apologies for cross-posting. I came across this report in the lead up to the first SteemCampUK in April 2018. I've always been interested in the potentialof blockchain to address some of our pressing societal problems and this was one of the early studies. I'm looking forward to investigating how things have changed since then.
A study by Stanford University's Center for Social Innovation and non-profit foundation Rippleworks analysed 193 social impact organisations and initiatives that are leveraging blockchain, exploring how much is hype and how much reality.
Key findings include:
It's early days, but social impact is close
- 55% of social-good blockchain initiatives are estimated to impact beneficiaries by the end of 2018.
Blockchain enables solutions not previously possible
20% of solutions would not otherwise have been possible without blockchain.
86% are material improvements over existing solutions.
The health sector has attracted more initiatives than any other
25% of initiatives are in the health sector, 13% in financial inclusion.
Philanthropy and aid, and democracy and governance were the next most active sectors (11% each).
Blockchain most often used to facilitate payments and verify records.
Leading use cases are records and verification (26%) and payments and money transfers (25%).
Most popular primary benefits are reducing risk and fraud (38%) and increasing efficiency (25%).