The NFT Inclusion Project pitches at the Spring 2022 Big Ideas Grand Prize Pitch Day, May 4, 2022.
NFTs use blockchain to prove the originality of any online content, and thus have the potential to revolutionize how we make and invest money online. Yet, women and minority groups are once again excluded, with a 95% male creator market who receive 77% of all NFT revenue, and males accounting for 3x the ownership of non-males. The NFT Inclusion project aims to create an NFT marketplace that focuses on principles of access, education and community building for a previously excluded voice in both the technological and financial ecosystems. The goal is not to encourage women and minority groups to break into a world that isn’t designed for them, nor are we looking to reinvent the wheel. Instead, it is to take a model that we’re familiar with (ie. online shopping for big fashion retailers like ASOS) and apply it to invite a wider audience into the world of buying and minting NFTs.
Over the past 20 years, vaccinations have prevented over 2 million deaths. This triumph, however, has not been a panacea. Today, 1 million children in low- and middle-income countries continue to die from vaccine-preventable diseases each year. This inequality is largely fueled by technical challenges surrounding the administration of vaccines using hypodermic needles. The MEDiRoller, consists of a novel, handle applicator, containing a spring-loaded delivery system and one of our two types of single-use polymeric microneedle cartridges. The two types of cartridges include a novel cartridge containing a hexagonal solid microneedle roller, that can raster across skin to treat larger surface areas, as well as a MNP cartridge containing a sterile biomedical sponge for sterile vaccine or drug containment and loading, followed by delivery through hollow microneedles. This Big Idea, if successfully developed, will revolutionize vaccine and drug delivery in low-resource communities.
We need to set a robust way to price carbon dioxide to allow markets to price in the cost of climate change. The most accepted method to price carbon employs complex models that are owned and run by scientists and policymakers in silos. Organizations, citizens and stakeholders don’t have access to them, and these models static data. Carbon pricing DAO’s plans to solve this issue by enabling open access to these models by cloud-hosting them, and providing APIs for web2 and web3 access. Additionally, Carbon Pricing DAOs will also build realtime climate oracles, that will assess the earth state, verify them and cryptographically sign this crucial data to these models, so that they’re up-to-date. Futhermore, it will develop a DAO creation tool that allows any organization to setup their own model, and achieve consensus on price-setting through this DAO. In conclusion, by allowing organizations to accurately set carbon Pricing for themselves, we will enable CO2 to be treated as a precious asset in the climate crisis.
Imagine graduating from college and having to wait three to five years before getting a stable job — this is the story of many young Nigerian college graduates. Madojo seeks to connect college students, employers, and entrepreneurial opportunities in Nigeria by hosting and micro-credentialing professional case challenge experiences. The name Madojo is coined from the words for community in the three major languages in Nigeria (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba). As a community of learners and opportunity seekers, the web-platform combined with in-person networks across major private and public universities in Nigeria will prepare students through real-world business cases to bridge the experience gap between the skills that students have and what employers in Nigeria seek in ideal candidates. The goal is to be a community of the future where professional trust is built on shared experiences and expectations that are publicly verified on a blockchain through micro-credentialing.
Sotira is a SaaS platform for sellers and resellers who sell products through Instagram or on ecommerce platforms like Etsy, Poshmark, Depop, Shopify, StockX and GOAT. This platform allows users to add all their income streams on one dashboard, so they can analyze and compare growth for each of them. Some features include ecommerce income stream management, financial tracking, expense tracking, sales logging, profit optimization and profit forecasting. Aditionally, it also helps sellers to easily create and mint NFTs to promote their small businesses and online stores and provides tools to help sellers analyze payments in different cryptocurrencies. Ultimately, Sotira plans on partnering with exchange platforms to enable sellers to invest profits from their ecommerce businesses into cryptocurrencies. By doing this, Sotira aims to help sellers and resellers, many of which are women, have a clear view into how much profit they are actually earning so they can optimize their income streams and price products more optimally.
Blackbook addresses the institutional inequities in higher education and employment, especially for Black students. By creating a space for community, peer-to-peer connection, mentorship, and organization, Blackbook promotes an equitable and inclusive experience for Black students in their college journey. Blackbook is streamlining the career process for many Black students by catering to academic enrichment and professional development.
Climate change has heightened natural disaster occurrence and intensity, displacing communities and exposing millions to detrimental health effects. Currently, 45 US states are at high risk of earthquakes, which don’t allow for advance warnings. Additionally, 2.2 million American homes at extreme risk of wildfire are in California. FireQuake takes the most comprehensive approach by addressing each stage in the disaster life-cycle: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. By addressing both mental and practical aspects of disaster preparedness, FireQuake gives students a comprehensive approach to disaster response.
Belonging Box is solving the problem of city-mandated sweeps negatively affecting unhoused people. They offer a solution that helps both the city and unhoused individuals by offering a space for both sleep and storage. By using a scanning system and app, the city, unhoused individuals, and Belonging has a flow of communication that protects belongings from being lost. Their goal to keep streets clean while protecting and helping unhoused individuals.
Data from Californian police departments reveal that up to 2 in 3 police dispatches stem from non-violent and non-criminal incidents. 9-1-1 calls for non-violent incidents in the U.S. have led to the brutal police killings of African Americans and at-risk citizens, most notably George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Tanisha Anderson. Send Help’s mission is to make calling an alternative first responder as easy as calling 9-1-1. They have built an AI chatbot that connects residents to suitable non-police services for their non-emergency — all within three taps of a button. They aim to reduce exposure to police for at-risk individuals, which can decrease occurrences of police violence and save lives.
