BLOCKCHAINS FOR SOCIAL GOOD EIC PRIZE WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The European Commission has announced six Prize winners, selected to receive a total of EUR 5 million to apply distributed ledger technology to societal challenges.

Winning projects support traceability and fair trade; financial inclusion; decentralised circular economy; transparency of public processes; participation in democratic decision-making; and management of public records.

This award, conducted as part of the NGI initiative, was launched with the funding of the Enhanced European Innovation Council (EIC) pilot, which supports top innovators, entrepreneurs, small companies and scientists to scale up their innovations through funding, coaching and networking.

The Prize supports solutions developed in Open Source. This will enable more innovators to benefit from the advanced technological solutions developed by participants.

The results of this Prize are important for the development of the Next Generation Internet initiative, which continues to explore the potential of Blockchain in new application areas, in particular to address local and global sustainability challenges in relation to the SDGs.

The winners will be awarded at the NGI Policy Forum in September 2020 (to be announced soon).

Please find more info about the Horizon Prizes here: https://ec.europa.eu/research/eic/index.cfm?pg=prizes_blockchains

About the EIC Horizion Prize ‘Blockchains for Social Good’

The EIC Horizon Prize ‘Blockchains for Social Good’ awards the next generation of Blockchain innovators in the broad area of social good, where Blockchain technologies can be vital to enable solutions for the emerging environmental, social and economic sustainability challenges.

By awarding 5 million euro to the innovators that come up with the most promising Blockchain solutions to different social good areas, the initiative aims to motivate the development of decentralised social innovations beneficial for the European society.

Where do the finalists come from?

In 2019, applicants from 43 different countries submitted 178 proposals, 33 of which from non-EU countries. Applicants are mostly small private companies or consortia, and include individuals and public institutions.

How are the prize winners selected?

A multidisciplinary jury of 30 high-level experts in Blockchain technologies and economic and social sciences has evaluated the 178 applications against the five criteria set in the rules of contest. This includes positive social impact, decentralization and governance, usability and inclusiveness, viability at large scale, and European added value.

The jury selected the finalists in November 2019, and has identified the winners after the event held in Brussels on 10th February 2020.

The jury also identified, according to the Rules of Contest, 4 additional areas, related to SDGs, which could not be foreseen at the inception of this Prize, in 2015. It also noted that unfortunately none of the above threshold applications were addressing the original area “participation in democratic decision-making by enabling accountability, rewarding of participation and/or anonymity”.

The resulting areas are as follows (in brackets, the full description as indicated in the rules of Contest):

traceability & fair trade (demonstrating the origin of raw materials or products and supporting fair trade and the fair monetization of labour);
transparency of public processes (allowing for a greater visibility of public spending and a greater transparency of administrative and production processes);
decentralised circular economy (enabling the development of decentralized social networks or clouds, or of decentralized platforms for the collaborative economy);
management of public records (managing property, land registry or other public records);
financial inclusion (contributing to financial inclusion)
aid & philanthropy (new area);
energy (new area);
health (new area);
quality content (new area).