The Hong Kong-based not-for-profit is the world’s first blockchain for social impact grant-making platform

Hong Kong — May 31, 2018 — Social Alpha Foundation, the platform aimed at supporting blockchain education and outreach in order to empower communities to utilize blockchain technology for social good, has announced financial backing from industry leaders including Kenetic, ICON, #Hashed, TLDR, Orbs, XSQ, and other anonymous donors.

“Blockchain is a young and often misunderstood technology, and its benefits have not been fully demonstrated in the real world. To realize its potential, we believe that blockchain must go beyond business, and we are making philanthropy part of the crypto and blockchain experience by providing funding to those who can imagine and realize a better future. This is done by harnessing the power of early beneficiaries in the space,” said Jehan Chu, Co-founder of Social Alpha Foundation and Managing Partner at Kenetic.

Founded in Hong Kong in 2017, Social Alpha Foundation provides no-strings funding to companies and projects that educate communities on blockchain for social change. Social Alpha Foundation also provides grants to non-commercial blockchain applications that focus on improving public health, education and the environment.

Successful applicants will receive financial grants ranging from US$10,000 to US$100,000 with no interest charged and no repayment obligations. Funding for grants will be raised in cryptocurrency from individuals and commercial projects that have executed successful token sales, creating a channel for donors to adopt corporate social responsibility practices.

A Social Alpha Foundation grantee, Aparna Krishnan, Head of Education for Blockchain at Berkeley and Thunder Token team member, gave a series of lectures last month on crypto economic design, the balance of cryptography, economics, game theory and tokenomics to faculty and students of various universities, as well as the Hong Kong blockchain community.  The goal of this education grant is to cultivate advanced blockchain skill sets and thought leadership in the Asian region.

Amply, another Social Alpha Foundation grantee, is a South African-based project utilizing mobile and blockchain technology to improve Early Childhood Development by empowering teachers and students.

“Amply uses blockchain technology to track student attendance via its digital identity protocol and interface, thus helping teachers easily and accurately submit required reports that ensure appropriate government funding and subsidies. The goal is to help teachers secure the vital government support needed to empower children’s education. The power of blockchain connects people and talent; it harnesses global distributed networks and creates massive communities that can change the world together,” said Nydia Zhang, Co-founder and Chairman of Social Alpha Foundation.

Social Alpha Foundation will also be providing $30,000 of prize money to winners of a hackathon at the Impact Summit, which will be taking place from June 1st-3rd in New York. The aim of the event is to inspire and empower the next generation of social entrepreneurs by bringing together 350 of some of the brightest computer science students to explore how they can leverage their technical talents for social good. The speakers at the event include software engineers from the ACLU and Zenysis, and the heads of digital media at Charity: Water and the United States Digital Service.

Social Alpha Foundation’s Board of Advisors include:

• Sandra Ro, CEO at Global Blockchain Business Council and former head of digitisation at Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME)
• Duncan Fitzgerald, Partner at PwC’s Risk Assurance practice, and Governor of the Institute of Internal Auditors (Hong Kong chapter)
• Professor David Lee Kuo Chen, Professor for Fintech and Blockchain at Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS)
• Jacqueline Chow, Executive Committee Member and Fundraising Committee Member of the Hong Kong Society for the Protection of Children (HKSPC)

Its Vetting Committee comprises:

• Loi Luu, Co-founder and CEO of Kyber Network
• Jude Wu, former Managing Director of Conservation International Hong Kong
• Brian Lio, Founder and CEO of Smith + Crown
• Matt Chwierut, Research Director of Smith + Crown
• Karen Pak Oppenheimer, Senior Adviser at the Institute for Transformative Technologies and former Vice-President at World Health Partners
• Joleen Soo,  Development Director (Hong Kong) of the Cambodian Children’s Fund

For more information, visit https://www.socialalphafoundation.org/