ixo: The Blockchain For Social Impact
ixo is a blockchain startup, based in Zug, Switzerland, which is bringing trust, transparency and validity to sustainable development or impact projects. The company is developing a decentralized impact exchange that organizations, government and researchers can use to make informed decisions to assess, evaluate and optimize impact investments. ixo recently launched the ixo Foundation, together with other global institutions as founding partners. The non-profit foundation serves as custodian and promoter of the ixo Protocol open-source code base, open standards and ixo Network.
ixo hopes to bring proof of impact and transparency to trillions of dollars spent worldwide on such impact projects by reducing fraud, corruption and costs and bringing valuable insight and data to the funder and service provider for making informed decisions. This global impact ledger will help the United Nations’ vision for sustainable development via data revolution.
UN Sustainable Goals
ixo's first pilot, the Amply project, supported by UNICEF and Innovation Edge, is a mobile app using the ixo protocol to track attendance in pre-schools in South Africa. Amply allows preschool educators to securely capture children’s school attendance using a mobile application and automates the generation of the Schedule B form required for the schools to receive government subsidies upon proof of attendance. In July, they will start demonstrating how the ixo protocol can be used to run smart impact bonds, to improve educational outcomes across 3 states in India, for 200,000 girls attending primary school.
ixo is establishing a new pilot with the Gold Standard Foundation and Nexleaf that would use IoT sensors to originate carbon credits as carbon tokens from clean-burning cook-stoves.
In an upcoming project with Seneca Public Zoo, the ixo protocol will be used to verify ecological regeneration funded by public donations to a reforestation project in Madagascar.
ixo’s work will have major implications in the impact investments space and will go a long way in identifying the real impact or value of such spends.