Delivering Internet via PSTN to billions of humans whose only means of connectivity might be a feature phone handset led to an epiphany: what else could we provide via this telephone-centric medium to benefit vast populations who are disconnected not only from information and education but also from financial services? Could we unleash a new tokenized consumer economy within our cloud-based distributed ledger blockchain to bank the unbanked billions? The minimum technology requirement for an end-user: the telephone they already possess.
There is considerable global anticipation for how cryptocurrency and coin exchange can revolutionize commerce and trade in emerging markets. Yet current valuation of cryptocurrencies is primarily driven by great expectations of what’s speculated to come at some point in the future. While the wealthiest continue to pour money into tokens purely on such speculation, there is presently no accessible exchange to facilitate liquidity for trade, particularly for the world’s poorest. According to the World Bank 59% of adults in developing countries do not have access to a bank account, credit card, smartphone, or any currently contemplated token wallet or web-based token exchange technology – no way to obtain or to transact with tokens or any form of electronic cash. The unbanked can’t make safe money transfers, build credit history, or borrow to build a business or improve their lifestyle. SARA will deliver the first viable exchange powered by AI and protected by blockchain to bank the unbanked and facilitate trade and e-commerce to a new consumer class until now underserved by merchants and society.
We first conceived using blockchain distributed ledger to provide privacy and security for the SARA interactive health network we are building for the People to Vaccines initiative deploying to developing regions where each year thousands of children needlessly die due to lack of immunization against preventable diseases. Imagine a handset serving as personal health ID and portal…with just a phone number SARA can provide personalized service, log inoculations and track responses to health queries. At hospital, a person’s phone number can link to their SARA health and vaccination record. Membership is not required to enable this feature. SARA Interactive Radio will connect and educate the disconnected to help ameliorate the last mile vaccine crisis impact and get people to the meds they require while authorities collect valuable data that can be used to better anticipate demand and logistics.
This same secure platform also supports financial transactions – every handset becomes a point-of-purchase. SARA repurposes basic wireless telephony and voice as a new medium for personalized one-to-one advertising and sales and is the ideal conversational commerce platform. Even individual farmers and craftspeople can afford to promote and sell their wares via SARA because they only pay for ads actually delivered to interested people within their target location and demographic. SARA alerts to current market prices, allowing farmers to skip the trip to the nearest competitive marketplace and instead trade directly with local customers.
SARA’s implementation of blockchain to bank the unbanked is uniquely optimized for dumb telephones with no local processor or memory. Transactions, records and data are all stored in the SARA cloud – not an end-user’s device – meaning all personal copies of any ledger reside in the cloud, in individual virtual vaults where each person’s data is isolated and secure from external intrusion and attack and protected by multi-factor authentication.
Others are recognizing the world-changing potential for blockchain to bank the unbanked. But the key to unleashing this new consumer economy in our lifetime requires designing for today’s technology. As Catherine Cheney recently and rightly cited in her Devex column, “Want to reach the world’s poorest? Design for dumb phones.” In developing markets where an emergent consumer class awaits a simple, accessible, friendly financial credit ecosystem designed expressly for peoples of any income, the SARA smart cloud facilitates an exchange where anybody with a telephone and tokens to spend can execute electronic purchase, sell, transfer and trade transactions using their handset simply by making a voice call or issuing SMS texts. It will take decades for mobile broadband and compatible smartphones to proliferate and become saturated into these new markets. Imagine instead inviting 3.9 billion people into a consumer economy within months, not decades, immediately accessed using devices they already own. Aged existing telecom carrier infrastructure finds new relevance as conduit for wireless content, advertising and e-commerce. Merchants of any size can participate in this new economy.
SaraConnects Blockchain Economy White Paper
How would tokens find their way into the hands of these billions at the lowest rung of the economic ladder to spark and fuel this new consumer economic class? How will such tokens be assigned a value and become fungible coin for daily trade and exchange? To learn more about SARA’s implementation of blockchain to bank the unbanked click to contact us and let us know who you are!
SARA is a smart cloud – the wireless web in the form of a radically new user interface native to the phone, delivering advanced smartphone functionality to the most basic devices with a friendly interface that is universal, uniform and immediately familiar. SARA permits rapid deployment of services compatible with devices pervasive to all populations, offering radio quality interactive audio via conventional telephony. Her learning, location awareness, data warehousing and data mining systems facilitate complete control and personalization for each caller regardless their status, and logs each unique individual’s lifetime of interactions with the service. SARA learns about individual listeners, like minded listeners, communities and populations.
