In this challenge, The Asian Development Bank (ADB) aimed to find ways to use NFTs to address development problems applicable in Asian countries.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique digital identifiers that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that are recorded in a blockchain, and that are used to certify authenticity and ownership (as of a specific digital asset and specific rights relating to it) of items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files.
Transactions recorded on blockchains are reliable because the information cannot be changed. Smart contracts can be used in place of lawyers and escrow accounts to automatically ensure that money and assets are exchanged, and the agreement is being honoured.
Clearly, NFTs create opportunities for new business models around selling and owning digital items but what are the opportunities for development? Could NFTs solve the issues of land ownership and other inequality issues? Can they be used for climate action projects? Could they be used to provide food security? The ADB tasked teams with proposing innovative development solutions to answer questions such as these.
Fauna aimed to raise awareness and funding for conservation organisations through a gamified global donation system as sales of NFTs (and their re-sales) go towards funding wildlife protection.
Entering the competition in October of 2021, Fauna competed against 99 teams from across the world. After the initial stage of the competition, Fauna was provided with a mentor, Eric Holdener from Kinestry, a digital innovation studio based in Los Angeles, USA. With the support and guidance of Kinestry, Fauna was able to innovate and provide the final pitch to a panel of judges and industry leaders in November 2022, ultimately winning first place and a seed grant to bring the idea to reality.
To learn more about the competition please follow the link below:
https://challenges.adb.org/en/challenges/nfts4dev?t=GZybhA1XYpexgz3fpwl1ng&utm_source=enterprisesg&utm_medium=listing&utm_campaign=sg_oin
