THE GLOBAL DAVOS ELITE NEED TO UNDERSTAND - BLOCKCHAIN = THE SOLUTION TO THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS ALREADY TODAY!!

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?Just a few days ago, the World Economic Forum in Davos kickstarted the world’s biggest event for the global economic elite with something of a schizophrenic first act. On the one hand, IMF showed both an upsurge in global growth since 2016 and a report forecasting growth in the two years to come. On the other hand, Oxfam discarded the report as misleading considering the fact that 82% of the wealth generated last year went to the richest 1%, while the poorer half saw no increase at all.

 Over the recent few years, we have seen the welfare of the poor steadily grow. That trend seems to have all but stagnated now. And the result? More nonsensical polemic bandied about between various factions. Populistic parties gaining ground. In extreme cases even larger recruiting pools for terrorist organizations. And meanwhile millions of innocent children suffer and die.s

 A glimpse into a living hell

Horrible doesn’t even begin to cover it. In my work with the refugee organization RHEB, where we delivered over 50 tons of supplies to more than 17 locations along the Balkan Route and the Middle East, I got to see it up close.

In Lesbos, I met refugee children who were fleeing from the bombings in Aleppo – naked. In Serbia and Slovenia, I saw children so unprepared for winter that they almost froze to death. In Iraq I met children who more than anything wished for education in the faint hope of securing their futures… despite such a thing not being possible.

That a world so wealthy and prosperous cannot help these refugees of war, economic misery, natural disasters, mass starvation and death is utterly inconceivable. But evidently, it is true. These innocent people, unable to escape their subhuman living conditions, cling on to life by mere efforts of will. Without express political efforts to redistribute the wealth of the world, there seems to be no hope in sight for them.

Or is that really the case?

The strongest people the world has ever seen

I’m not so convinced. The situation might be true, but the perspective is stale. Naturally, political involvement is appreciated, even though that path has been trodden plenty of times before without anything to really show for. But, most importantly, when I look back at all the fantastic people I have met… I don’t see people that identify as “helpless victims”.

A young artist in Kalymnos who, without clothes, money or food, brings his mother and three beloved nephews in a miniscule rowboat across the Dead Sea. Victim? Yes. Helpless. Hardly.

A Yazidi woman who, despite multiple rapes, a murdered husband and seven dead or imprisoned children, escapes her fate as ISIS-traded sex slave to provide for her four remaining children by gathering wild parsley. Victim? Oh, yes. Helpless? Not at all.

Heroes – not victims

These people are “victims” in the most fundamental meaning of the word. Yet when I look them in their eyes, it is not victims that I see. I see a will to provide for their loved ones so strong that it eclipses all else. I see love and power and a desire to live despite their almost unspeakable living conditions.

But next to the real heroes, even they pale in comparison. Because in the midst of this living hell on Earth, we find the children. Children whose parents answer “clothes and food” when asked what they need. Children who, when posed with the same question, consistently answer “education”, “education”, “education, I wanna be a doctor”.

Children unaware that such a future simply does not exist.

Children whose eyes sparkle as they imagine that future anyway. Children who would do anything to live that future. But they are children who, instead, will see their starving siblings and parents get raped and murdered. They are children whose futures might see them recruited into terrorist organizations or simply starved to death, like the millions of others before them.

And in the rest of the world there are two billion overweight people. In the rest of the world, 1% owns 82% of all the money. In the rest of the world there is a new billionaire every other day.

Modern solutions to modern problems

Of the world’s $400 billion in donations, more than 40 billion goes to administrative costs. This is money that, with the right kind of blockchain solution, could instead go directly to where it’s needed.

Just imagine a world where your ENTIRE donation would actually go straight to a specific refugee in a specific refugee camp. The gross amount of money this would liberate could in one fell swoop decrease the 700 million severely impoverished people in the world – by half.

This is not a future scenario. This can be done today.

The most powerful tool against poverty

30 years ago, Nelson Mandela said something that holds even more true today:

“Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.”

30 years ago, there were no mobile phones. Thirty years ago, only 3 million people had access to the Internet. Today, that number is 3.9 billion.

So, on the one hand, we have 65 million refugees, of which 51% are children, most without education. On the other, the majority of them own mobile phones. There are 260 million children without education in the world… but most of them live in areas with decent mobile penetration.

 It doesn’t take a large leap of the imagination to realize that the solution spells mobile learning, with artificial intelligence that personalizes the courses to suit every individual student’s needs, a cryptocurrency to help budget lifelong learning and blockchain-secured certifications. We’re talking about a solution that not only increases global knowledge and people’s relevance on both local and global job markets, but also aids development, empowerment and liberation.

Davos – you’re addressing the correct problem, but don’t you see that the solution is already here?

Dear economic elite and participants in Davos. You know much about your economy and politics, and maybe, maybe you really understand how serious the global situation is. But have you understood the simple truth that…

 … the solution to the problem is already here?

It is a fact, and whether the technology behind the digital strategy for the solution is called mobile phone, artificial intelligence, blockchain or AR, there simply aren’t any reasons why it shouldn’t already have been carried out.

So the real question is: where’s the bravery to change the world? Where’s the passion and the drive? Where is the genuine pathos?

Should it not be self-evident that we all have to help make sure we stop chasing pointless political “solutions”? And shouldn’t it be our damned duty as human beings to give the world’s innumerable refugee children what they all dream of – a future?

It’s time to take a look in the mirror. And it is time to act. As a nation. As individuals. And as human beings.