An emerging blockchain startup aimed at revolutionizing the way money is donated to charities for people affected by natural disasters has won the D10e contest in Amsterdam with an exclusive invitation to pitch at the D10e in San Francisco in July.
Helperbit , a natural disaster management platform, faces real-world problems harnessing the power of blockchain and geographic information system (GIS) technologies with the aim of helping people affected by catastrophic events around the world. Aiming to unlock untapped potential donations, which are estimated to be between $4 billion and $8 billion, Helperbit uses a fast and transparent P2P donation system. It is through this system that donors and those affected by natural disasters are put into direct contact, avoiding the middleman.
Co-founders of Helperbit, Guido Baroncini Turricchia, Davide Gessa, Davide Menegaldo, Roberto Tudini, Vincenzo Aguì and Gianluca Carbone, initially came up with the idea after reading news about the misuse of funds after the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake in Italy. In 2012, the Italian il Fatto Quotidiano reported that the five million euros donated by Italians to help with building reconstruction was still sitting in banks, which saw the donations transferred to a guarantee fund blocked for nine years, meaning the five million earthquake victims ended up not seeing a penny.
Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine , Guido Baroncini Turricchia said:
“Many of the problems related to the redistribution of donations would be softened if the money flow was visible on the blockchain public ledger. After some research, we found that many people avoid donating not only due to a lack of transparency, but also because of the delay, inefficiency and the arbitrary redistribution of funds. It was clear that all these issues would have been solved if a system gave more control and transparency to the user.”
Enter Helperbit, the system that the […]
