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- [00:10]
A
Welcome to Humanitarian Frontiers on the Edge. This is a place to learn about the art of the possible, using technology in some of the most difficult environments in the world, assisting people in their most vulnerable time. Want to learn more? Let's dive in.
- [00:27]
B
Hi, everybody, and welcome back. This is Chris Hoffman, another episode of Humanitarian Frontiers on the Edge. I'm super excited about our guests today. I'm joined by Eric Kaduru from CARE and Drew Golkar from Common Lands. And couldn't be happier to get into a discussion with not only like minded people, like minded friends, but also people really pushing the envelope on getting NGOs to think differently, getting communities to interact in new ways. And so it's going to be really exciting. So, Darius Goldkar, thank you so much for joining us. Eric, great for you to be here with us. But I do want to take a moment for you to kind of talk about what you're doing, what's your passion and what's going on. So, Darius, I'll turn it over to you first. Love to hear about what you're up to and what's going on. Yeah.
- [01:18]
C
Well, Chris, thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Just so everyone knows, because you said Drew and Darius, I go by both. And whichever one you want to go with, that's fine. But would you, would you like me to give a little bit of a background on myself before I get into my work, or do you want me to jump into my work? No, no.
- [01:43]
B
What was this journey that brought you to where you are today? And what do you see as the future?
- [01:48]
C
All right, well, I'll try to keep it short, but. So I was raised in Silicon Valley. My father was a political refugee. He actually escaped Iran, escaping political persecution. And we know with current events in the world right now, all of that stuff, so it's hitting close to home, so to speak. But growing up in a family with political refugee and an entrepreneur father in Silicon Valley and a mother, that encouraged me to make the change that I wanted to see in the world. I don't think that it should be shocking to people that I ended up working in, let's say, social entrepreneurship and globally, so to speak. I started my first technology company when I was 18, actually, and kind of like what you do in Silicon Valley. And I was lucky, lucky enough to, I actually did drop out of college to finish it.
- [03:00]
D
Wow. And the story for real, I mean, if gets better.
- [03:07]
C
So anyway, I had, I had a small, very humble exit that freed me up and allowed me to do what I actually wanted to do. And which is to fast forward a bit, go and start work in East Africa with refugees. At the time, the largest refugee camp in the world, Kakuma refugee camp. And I was working with at risk Kenyan youth and Sudanese refugees to do leadership development and entrepreneurship training. One of the first scholars that went through our program actually graduated from the African Leadership Academy. He went to university in the United States, got a Dalai Lama Fellowship, and now I believe, if not the largest, one of the largest schools in South Sudan, he's leading. And yeah, it just. This is the work that I wake up wanting to do, full stop. The thing that allows me to have a slightly different perspective, and Chris, this probably hits home for you, is that I also have the exposure and the background in technology. And what we notice a lot in the NGO world is technology is like this black box that people don't understand and they don't know what is possible. And so I see my job as bridging that gap. And that's what we're doing with common lands. And we'll get into the details later, but just to summarize, we're creating a global commons for identity, for inclusion and for trust for the forgotten people of the world that don't have identities, can't prove anything and unfortunately got the bad end of the birth lottery. And so we have some really exciting stuff that we're doing. We've done with Eric and Care and some really exciting stuff. I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to share publicly yet, but technology is going to allow us to put a huge, huge impact for the forgotten class of people in the world. And that's why I'm here.
- [05:41]
D
I love it.
- [05:41]
B
I love it. What a story. What a story.
- [05:43]
C
Eric.
- [05:44]
B
Yeah. The third of this trio today. I'd love to hear what you're up to at Care and your journey.
- [05:53]
D
Yeah. So similar to Darius, I am. Well, I'm a native of East Africa. I consider myself an East African fully because I was born in Kenya and raised around the East African continent. I had the opportunity to travel quite a bit and get educated in different parts of the world. I've lived in Europe, I've lived in West West Africa, South Africa and now currently living in the us. I started my journey. Oh actually, actually pre Francis is. I'm actually the. The. The spawn of. Of development work. Both my parents were in. In development. They were both lawyers, but they both worked for large NGOs. My mom was the country director for Oxfam in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia. So we moved around Quite a bit. My dad, before he passed, was the country director for lwf, which is a German ngo. So I literally spent my whole life trying to steer away from this. Both the NGO sector, it's in your DNA.
- [07:07]
C
My friend
- [07:09]
D
somehow got pulled back in. I tried to get out, but they pulled me back in. So I initially started my career in advertising and I worked in South Africa and Uganda for a while, but at some point got tired of driving to work and being stuck in traffic and moved out to rural Uganda in Fort Porto, which is where my dad was from. And I started an agribusiness which then spawned into a social enterprise which kind of like grew to a point where I had the privilege of being in rooms with cool people. I've sat on panels with multiple African presidents. I got to meet Barack Obama at the White House. It's been cool. And I did win a very prestigious award at a young age as the Africa Food Prize. That gave me an insight into this side of development that I always felt needed to be addressed. And it was more about building out ecosystems that brought together partners that were solving local solutions in a sustainable manner. My organization was built out of creating economic opportunities for women, using agriculture as the foundation. And we built a business that turned into a processing plant and is still ongoing. We currently do a lot of work with the UN in refugee settlements, training on sustainable agriculture. But my current world is I work at CARE as the lead on digital inclusion and financial. Digital and financial inclusion for the global VSLA team. And I've been trying to bring together this bridge that I had noticed at a younger age of how we can link the development sector to sustainable businesses, sustainable platforms that actually would enable our work to continue beyond our program period.
- [09:23]
B
Legacy.
- [09:25]
D
Yeah, exactly. And leveraging the experience of the NGO sector and building community, develop programs and then partnering with organizations that are trying to build locally sourced, locally built solutions that understand the context of where they're working. This kind of like spawned into the digital space as the world is changing. And as Drew mentioned, NGOs tend to look at technology as this black hole. And my job is to try and sensitize people on how this black hole is the black hole that they do have to fall into at some point.
- [10:10]
B
Exactly.
- [10:10]
D
And just accommodate that journey and make it a little more user friendly for both the beneficiaries and the practitioners in the development space. So that's where I've been and I'm very excited to be here and speak to like minded individuals as well. It's cool.
- [10:27]
B
Absolutely. I mean there's, there's so much. I think we could go on for hours and hours and hours. Darius, you, you mentioned a word though that I don't know is very common. Sorry, the joke, I don't know if it's very common amongst many of our colleagues. And so trying to just first wrap the head around the commons and the commons, you know, is I would say for the layperson was a bit academic as a term, right? It, conceptually, I think we all know what it is, but from the term commons, right. It can be looked at as an academic term a little bit. And so can you break it down a little bit so people can understand it? So, because this is going to frame a little bit more of our conversation, I think it comes from what Eric was saying, that grassroots level, traditional way of working with each other, engagement from a community level, et cetera.
- [11:18]
C
But what. Yeah, comments.
- [11:20]
B
Can you, can you, can you break that down?
- [11:21]
C
Yeah, so let's not. First of all, I don't claim to be an expert in. So the commons could be a legal term, it could be an academic term, it could be also just, you know, street slang. So the first thing I would say is let's not overcomplicate it. And also I'm not a scholar on the subject, but I know enough to know how to name a company after it, so to speak, so called common lands. And you know, the other, the other term that also I hear get thrown around is public infrastructure or public, a public good. And this is essentially like, think of like the air that we breathe, right? So we're all sharing the same air and therefore we all have some right, some people would disagree with it, but we all have a right to breathe the best possible air that we can, which is why you start, you know, smoking laws, smog laws and all that kind of stuff. But this idea that we're all in this together and let's figure this out together, that's as simple as I can, as I can make it. And that is in my work is like literally at the base code level of what we're doing is this idea of a shared good and a shared infrastructure that's owned and controlled by all the participants, not one individual. And it seems counterintuitive, but I tell my team all of the time our job is to make us irrelevant and the people that are participating, the flag bearers and the owners, and to make it so that agreement and consensus is developed and truth is developed based on the individuals that participate. And that's. You call it democracy, call It. Whatever you want, but that's the, the idea behind the Commons.
- [13:34]
B
Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. And I think it's so important because if we look at, not. Not to get too, too deep philosophically in this, but if we look at the NGO sector of which we have all worked for in the past, you know, 20 years, on my side of working on that side of the House, and there is something that has shifted. Right. And I think it was a friend of mine didn't say, it's not the humanitarian reset, it's the humanitarian reckoning. And it was a reckoning of coming back and saying, actually the way that we were doing business for the last 70 years, since World War II, while it was applicable kind of post World War II. After that, we kind of went. We went awry. We were driven by certain things, we were driven by certain activities. And so this mentality, this mindset, I think, is really apropos to what the future needs to be for. For development in the humanitarian sector. And so I really appreciate that definition, Eric, when you look at care and you look at some of the things that are going on, is there certain technologies. Are there certain technologies or certain pathways that you're trying to steer the organization towards when it comes to tech, are there certain pieces to the puzzle that you think are going to be transformational and engaging with communities more deeply and in a better way because of technology?
- [14:57]
D
Yeah, so it's a, it's a, It's a complicated question or, or answer. I guess my main thing is, is working with. With tools that are addressing current needs of those populations we work with. So, like, it's easy to be like, oh, yeah, there's a farming project over there that would benefit from, you know, drone technology that, you know, scouts climates or whatever. But understanding that the beneficiaries will not be able to operate or utilize that effectively is where the big issue comes in. So we try and identify tools that are addressing current needs that fit within the constraints of our demographic and also are easy to, like, bring into those. Those communities. So right now, a lot of the entry point tools are like, on digitizing data. So we have a lot of partnerships with different platforms that are digitizing group data to try and make it easier for the formal financial sectors to utilize that data and then provide services to those communities. There are steps you have to take before you get to that point, and a lot of it is on sensitizing communities and, you know, enforcing digital. Enforcing is a terrible word. Or like engaging in digital literacy programming. So, like, bringing People from what the stage they're at to a stage where they can understand how to use this and understand why it would benefit them and also avoid situations that's going to incur unintended consequences. So like when you start introducing technology to communities, you know, you have to bring in devices which could lead to, you know, gender based violence, which is a common thread that we see in the work that we're doing. So yeah, I guess the response there is we're working with technology that is relevant to the communities but also can enhance where they are and bring them to that next next level.
- [17:06]
B
Yeah, I mean I would be remiss because it is called humanitarian frontiers on the edge and the edge is in a couple of different ways. Right. Edge could be on the phone. Right. So at the user level or it can be what we would say is future looking tech. Right. So what are those things that could be ubiquitous in the future? I mean obviously AI comes to mind when people talk about it now. Something that some people were talking about many years ago but really has become mainstream in the last two years in terms of the conversation. But are there like I'll give an example and Darius and Eric, you both are in this space, but blockchain people said 10 years ago, blockchain, we don't have any use cases for it in the humanitarian sector, in the development sector, it's really tough to figure that out. And there were a few evangelists out there that were saying, no guys, we just need to take the time to figure it out. Apps are easy because everybody likes to see an app, it's easy to work with. So let's just develop a whole bunch of apps instead of actually looking deeply into the potential use cases of tech. So I wanted to ask both of you, and maybe Darius, you first, is this blockchain's time? The idea of the commons, the idea of the humanitarian reckoning, has the technology matured enough? Does it have enough understanding through by technologists to, for, for web3 to. To. To. To really have its heyday now.
- [18:40]
C
Oh, you're touching a nerve. So let me. Eric already knows what my response is going to be. And to you and to your listeners, please, I implore stop talking about the technology and start talking about possibilities. The technology is irrelevant. The outcome is what is valuable and what is desired. We are having this conversation because of what's possible, not because the person that invented the Internet was trying to explain all of the details behind the technology. The use cases for the technology themselves are the justification to use it and not the technology itself. Okay. Blockchain is alive, well, kicking and working in this space.
- [19:46]
B
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is.
- [19:48]
C
So it's not a question. The people that will make the decisions about how to deploy technology don't need to understand the technology. And the technology, when used correctly, doesn't even show itself.
- [20:07]
D
No, no, no.
- [20:09]
C
I hope that answers your question.
- [20:12]
B
It is, yeah, go ahead, Eric.
- [20:14]
D
Just, just building on what, what he's saying is the technology really is irrelevant. It's the pathway to introducing it and deploying it that makes sense from my perspective. I took a while to understand how blockchain works. Once I understood it, I was like, yeah, that actually makes sense. So when you say the technology is irrelevant, I think that's a very good answer because at the user facing tech, the user experience is what is going to change the way this works. So like we talk about how we can introduce stablecoin into community programs and such. When you, when you come in and start talking about stablecoin, it take. It took me time to understand how that worked. But if you come in and say, I'll give you this thing and with this you can do this, this and that, that's all they need to hear. Is it addressing a problem I have? Does it make my life a little easier?
- [21:17]
C
Yes.
- [21:17]
D
I don't need to know the back end mechanics of how it works. If it addresses the issues, then it works for me. Obviously we have to sensitize people on the potential dangers that exist within these spaces. When you use blockchain is actually solving areas that are prevalent to like fraud and stuff. Those are things that are starting to be addressed by that kind of technology. But like sensitizing them on where their data could be used, what kind of data breaches could happen or what they need to understand about the cost around using mobile money or whatever. Those are the kind of things we need to sensitize people on. But we don't need to speak about how it was built and how the blockchain works on the back end. That makes it complicated. And I feel that that's where the black hole starts to become a problem for the development space. So like we have to figure out a way to like introduce technology in a way that people is palatable to those who don't understand it. And that, that is kind of the work I'm trying to. The bridge I'm trying to build between the tech providers, the digital space and the development sector.
- [22:29]
B
Yeah, yeah, because, because you know, you talked about digital literacy but you were talking at the user level Earlier. But, you know, the reality is, is that the digital literacy, what's coming out through a lot of these episodes is the digital literacy of the sector itself is actually the biggest stumbling block, right? And. And there's not enough internal sensitization on. On what technologies are available just so that people can think about how it could be used, given their understanding of the context that they're working in, right? So it's always. It's always that. That's. That's a big gap. And I feel like organizations need technology evangelists inside them, right, that aren't employed in the IT department, right. This is a separate person that's got a task to be the innovation or the technology evangelist. And this person, they're the ones creating partnerships. They're the one bridging that discussion. Because just on my side, right, because we're doing stablecoin payment systems over our platforms. And our goal, our real goal is that there are 1.4 billion people without a bank account globally, and the opportunity to have a common platform for them to engage on to create their own wallets. And that as a community, the community agrees that when a new person comes on, they already give them a little seed capital so they can start to operate and then they can put in their money if they want, and they can take it out if they want. They can get loans if they want, right? But we're talking 1.4 billion people and a free platform for anybody to use. And so, you know, and people look at me and they're like, what are you talking about, Chris? Is that possible? I'm like, it's not even. Not. It's not even a question of possibility. It's already there.
- [24:09]
D
It's there now.
- [24:10]
B
It's now it goes to you, Eric, then it goes to your point, right?
- [24:13]
D
Yes.
- [24:13]
B
How do you get the communities to understand? But then I think about Kenya, right? And I think about when I was in Kenya, 1999, okay? And by 2001, mobile phones started to come in, right? It'd be a lot more than what they were. By 2004, we had M? Pesa. 2003, you know, we had M? Pesa. And I was like, no. I remember saying, nobody's ever going to put money on their mobile phone. How in the heck are they going to spend it?
- [24:40]
D
You know, now you have a cashless economy.
- [24:44]
B
And, you know, the banking sector in Kenya has really been throttled by this, right? It upended people having to go and have bank accounts. Now you could do KYC over a phone, then you could Go straight to a kiosk and then. And now you've got Bomba and all this other stuff happening. Right?
- [25:01]
D
And, and the reason that worked is because they built it and framed it in a context that people understood. So, like, these structures exist. So, like, we have, you know, let's say, VSLA structures, Chamas, whatever. These are structures that are, if you look at it from the perspective of tech, they're built out to actually, you know, mimic that. That whole process. You're using community structures, trust that's within people's groups that, that, that regulates issues that. That could happen based off of, you know, just external factors. So, like, how do we create messaging that makes people within the development space understand that if we were looking at it from this perspective, it should not be a threat and we cannot be. The. This is a big problem I've faced in this whole space is like we end up becoming the gatekeepers of.
- [25:59]
B
That was going to be my question to Drew.
- [26:01]
D
Yeah, yeah, we're gatekeeping solutions because we can see from a perspective of like, okay, these are the potential threats. I understand that there's data breaches all the time because my data is leaked by, let's say, Meta or whatever. But the end user just knows that when I'm on WhatsApp, I'm talking to my cousin in China, I'm talking to my. I'm getting videos and messages, and for them, my data being shared outside of this communication is not important. Do I get to speak to the people I haven't spoken to in years because they were overseas? That's the thing that's being fixed in this example. So, like, we can't be bringing all the problems that the world has to offer to. To a group of people who are not interested in those problems.
- [26:54]
B
Yeah, I love that.
- [26:56]
D
I love that we're interested in communicating with our cousins. We don't want to hear about. Meta is selling my data to Russia. That means nothing to me.
- [27:06]
B
So, yeah, Darius, Darius, I mean, I want to ask, because this is such an important point, and I want to pose it with kind of, again, the art of the possible here. Is it conceivable to think that if NGOs actually made an effort to engage more deeply with the technology companies that are developing these types of technologies that we're talking about and don't develop it themselves and then want to hold onto it, don't want to grasp onto it because of the competitive nature. Right. They actually become NGOs, become marketers of appropriate technologies. Right. Is that, is that even a Possibility. Is that a future?
- [27:49]
D
That's the answer.
- [27:51]
C
Well, yeah, I'm going to respond with a question and then I want to get to some other points that you guys just made because my mind's going a million miles an hour right now. My response and answer is, what is your business?
- [28:10]
B
Yeah.
- [28:11]
C
If you can't even answer that question, why are you talking about spending money and managing and all this kind of stuff? What's your business? What's your specialty? Didn't we already decide, as humanity centuries ago that specialization is better for everyone? Full stop. Okay? Now we were having a huge conversation. M Pesa, all of this, you know, stuff going on. Chris, you said yourself, M Pesa, who's going to put money on is now the foundation of, let's say, commerce, at least in the communities we're working in. But I would argue for the whole country is the foundation. It answers the question that we're already wasting time discussing. If you frame the blockchain, the stablecoin, all of these new developments in the following way, I think it helps eliminate the technology and again, go to possibilities. What blockchain and cryptocurrencies stablecoins do is allow you to run an M. Pesa across enterprises globally in a secure, transparent fashion. That's all it does. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. Yeah, but instead of it being owned and controlled by a telco, it's a shared platform like the Internet that allows the same thing to happen at scale. That's it. It's no different. It's no different. Value is being transferred digitally and it's getting reconciled. Instead of one company being the arbiter of truth for the reconciliation, it's now the global commons, the Internet. It just so happens to be called the blockchain.
- [30:22]
B
Yeah, 100%.
- [30:24]
D
Sometimes I feel like, you know, when you, you just deeply believe in something and like, my passion is so strong in this work. It's like I. I wake up and I enjoy what I'm doing because I'm. I feel like I'm actually solving problems that exist. And, you know, it might. I might be just thinking of myself at a too high, like, hey, but I do really think that us guys who are working in this space right now are solving problems that exist and are going to change the way this is shaped. We're at a conference, Darius, the conference in Uganda in September. And I remember someone being on stage and saying how the whole point of this work is to maintain the status quo. Like, and I was like, I understand what you're trying to say, but you're also making a point that just makes no sense.
- [31:29]
C
Because I think. I think.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah.
- [31:31]
C
And it's like the point. I think this was Will.
- [31:36]
D
Yeah.
- [31:36]
C
And I think the point he was making was that the structure that exists today was the stepping stone. If we lock people into the current structure, you're denying them the freedom that we're trying to give them in the first place.
- [31:50]
D
Exactly. You cannot. This goes back to us being gatekeepers or being the enemies of progress. Yeah, the structure works. And it worked and it solved the problem that existed when that problem was the main problem. But the world has changed, and we actually have to evolve with that changing world or we're going to be left in a place where we're just done for. And like these digital tools, the blockchain, all these things are providing an opportunity for people to move from where they are to that next phase. And if we are working in that direction of, like, empowerment and creating social economic opportunity for other people, you have to align with what's happening in the world or you become irrelevant. And like, for organizations like CARE that have a huge stake with millions of beneficiaries, it is so important for us to be the flag bearers in dictating or determining how this change happens for these communities. And we should not be sitting in a place where we're saying, oh, yeah, this thing we developed in 1967 that has lasted for so long works when we can actually move it to that next phase. We can get our groups from, you know, a structure in the community that is built on trust to a structure in a digital space that is still built on trust and supported by the ecosystems around us and allows these people to move with that time. Otherwise, it's just like, what are we doing?
- [33:31]
B
I think there's another big point to this, which is if we look at the NGOs of the 80s and the 90s and the thousands, 2000s, there has always been a discussion about, well, we need to prepare ourselves to hand this over to the government authorities. It's always kind of been the mindset is that to make it sustainable and every donor puts it in their thing that this has to be handed over. And. And you know, what I'm hearing in this conversation is that, no, that needs to be done. We need to get rid of it. It needs to be tools. You mentioned public goods, digital public goods, digital public infrastructure, all the right. And so it's the idea that the communities, the reason why NGOs were there is because social systems Collapsed because there was some sort of thing that facilitated that collapse. Right. Whether it was a crisis, a natural disaster, whatever it is. And the idea was that the government couldn't, because those things were so traumatic that the government couldn't keep up for that time period. And so NGOs come in for a short term help out and then take over and the government's able to do it. And what happened was we see the reliance and everything on foreign aid, et cetera, and we don't have to get into that. But I think, Eric, what you're saying, and kind of what you said is coming to work every day and being excited about creating tools or looking at problems and seeing how to solve them, not for the ngo, and, and, and looking at it and saying, how do we create these platforms that people can access that make their lives better? It doesn't have to be a platform, it can be other things. Right. But just, you know, in this way. And so to me, it sounds like what, what I'm hearing is that this whole idea of handing over to the government's kind of passe. We need to get away from this idea.
- [35:12]
D
Yeah. And it's not so much as, like, I do have to acknowledge the importance of having the governments adopt certain things, but in the case of technology, the government will adopt something that is working and addresses systems that they are failing to put into place, and technology offers that solution. So if you can create a system where people are aggregating their data and linking to financial services and linking to healthcare and insurance and things that the government should be providing, you don't hand that over to the government because that's a system that's now controlled by the community that the government is there to serve. So if you build something that's working and is working off of the structures that the community have formed and mimics those structures, it becomes the norm. That's the norm. It's no longer in the. You can't give the power to the people in power to then help make them distribute it evenly. No, this is a point where we have that opportunity to change the way the status quo is and then have that become the new status quo. So it's like the government is important, but the structures exist without the government. And the structures that the government has failed to put in place can be addressed by these things that we are starting to develop. So if that makes sense.
- [36:44]
B
Yeah, it does.
- [36:44]
D
As I said, it sounds.
- [36:46]
C
No, no. So, Eric, you're absolutely spot on. By the way, I have a degree in political science. I have a B.S. i say a bullshit in political science. And you know, I say that not because I'm an authority, but because it provides a frame. The frame is if you ask the question, what is the role of government historically, the role of government, if you were to simply oversimplify, it's to be the arbiter of trust and the provider of security. Technology has removed the obligation and the status of a government to be the arbiter of truth. They become a participant in the commons, to use my own word of truth. But they're not the gatekeeper. And what's shifting now is the role of government is now going to be solely focused on security, defined in the broadest possible sense. Truth is no longer the truth is no longer the business of governments. Technology has taken that over.
- [38:03]
D
Our revolution is televised
- [38:07]
B
and on Facebook and Instagram. But Darius, with that, I mean, I think it's a good parlay into what Common Lands is doing. Can you talk to us about that? Because you've mentioned trust and how this brings in the community, trust, et cetera. And so I would love the listeners to be able to hear kind of how you've designed that.
- [38:28]
C
So first and foremost, Common Lands is an ideology like I've been expressing. And the ideology is that all the participants are the owners and the ones that assemble truth. And blockchain enables that concept to actually provide value, especially in the context of last mile, bottom base of the pyramid, the forgotten, you know, 1.4 and I would argue closer to 3 billion people on the planet. And what Common Land's goal is, is to be a rail and infrastructure that allows communities to self assemble truth and to contract with each other and the world in a seamless way that melds with their reality. That's what we're setting out to do. So getting back to like what a government's role is and the legal systems and all that, legal systems fail in the developing world, period. I have a lot of experience and it's been written about and talked about, you know, extensively. The legal system does not work, especially for these last mile communities. Someone let me just highlight two examples that are seem obvious, but if you don't think about it this way, you can't even begin to address some of this stuff we're talking about and what Common Lands is trying to achieve. One is contracting and two is titling. I got started on this journey because I discovered and was introduced to her Hernando de Soto's work the Mystery of Capital. And the premise of his work is that private property rights are the foundation for a developed economy. It's much more complex than that. But that's the base. Private property is a legal concept. It fits within a legal framework. If people don't have access to that legal framework, it does not work for them. The people we're talking about do not have access, therefore they have no rights. Therefore they don't exist. Yeah. Okay, so that's one titling does not exist for the majority of the world. The majority, and it's actually the vast majority. You step out in a developing country, you step out of the city, Titles don't exist and are not trustworthy. It's as simple as that. You don't need to get into statistics, you don't need to get into arguments. It is the truth.
- [41:32]
D
Yep.
- [41:33]
C
Okay. Therefore those people are not able to participate. Now. So we've just established private property doesn't exist. How do you contract amongst individuals in these communities in a way that upholds rights? You can't. You know what becomes the arbiter who has the bigger stick.
- [41:57]
B
Yeah.
- [41:58]
C
Okay. You talk about food insecurity, you talk about water insecurity, you about talk. You talk about instability. What is the root? The root is that the legal systems don't work for these people. And therefore the stick rules.
- [42:15]
B
Yep.
- [42:17]
C
Common Lands provides the rails that allow these community members to contract amongst themselves in a way that's indisputable. And they can be illiterate. They don't even have to own a phone. Everything is verifiable by anyone in the world instantaneously. And the only way that contracts can get entered into and removed or exited out of is with the permission of the person that's being subjected to the contract. At its simplest form, that's what we're doing. And technology allows us to do that. The possibilities are endless. The art of possible, you name it. But the bottom line is, as we say, if people can't participate, they don't exist. And that's the reality for 3 billion people in the world.
- [43:13]
D
If you have one of those, the sound machines that goes like, that's where that goes. Because I will attest to what he's saying and the fact that I've seen it in practice and seen how it works and seen how our community adopts this particular solution is phenomenal. Land rights have been an issue just beyond. I can't even begin to explain how long that goes. But we saw like we piloted a project with Common Lands in Uganda and within three months the achievement of that project was shocking as how fast it was Adopted by the community because of the ease of use, the solutions it was creating around people's ownership of land because it's governed by them. They're creating. The disputes that exist are solved by them literally sitting there and, you know, defining the border of our, of our land together and building this network of groups that have adopted this technology and creates a certificate, some sort of, at this point, being an informal, you know, land title. But what we saw is the local community adapted it so quickly and the local government was like, damn, that actually addresses a lot of the issues we have to deal with. Like, I don't have to, as the local chairperson, have to go and meet with these people to agree on where the boundary is. They've kind of created it themselves. They've got a certificate that then I can recognize as, yeah, that's binding. That does all the work for me. And we've kind of created a governing system without the government, but the government, the local government adopts it because it solved a problem that they have been facing. And because there's such a lack of surveyors and the cost of surveying land is so expensive using a digital tool where no one, only one phone is necessary to just go and geo map your boundary and anyone can download the app. And again, now I sound like a real evangelist for your particular solution. But he, Darius and I met 15, 16 years ago, and you told me about this then. And when you told me about it then I said, damn, that would be something that's insane. That would actually solve so many problems 15 years ago. Fast forward 15 years later, when I'm at care, he calls. He's like, oh, this thing. I've actually done it. I'm like, no way. And that's why I'm like, dude, this thing makes so much sense. These are the kind of tools that we have to be like, pushing. I have to be advocating for things that are addressing real problems and fixing issues that communities are facing. And in that same step, actually addressing government shortfall and then becoming something that local government can take on because it's something that they don't have to do. They don't have to pump resources into. It's more trustworthy because the individuals actually doing it themselves. And once you're locked into it, you've agreed, you've created this community of agreement with each other and everyone, by the way.
- [46:47]
C
So thank you, Eric, for, for the feather in the cap and for evangelizing common land. So you're absolutely right. The. The foundation of law. So what, what are we talking? I Try to con if it's not clear. I try to conceptualize stuff, right. And make it simple and easy. The basis of property rights, the basis of land rights, property rights. And the legal system itself is consensus.
- [47:21]
B
Yeah.
- [47:24]
C
So let me take that a step back. Eric is like, wait, what's he talking about? When you go into the legal system, case law, you hear people talk about case law. What is case law? It's consensus. It's people agreeing after arguing, arguing how to interpret things. And what is the baseline? What is a baseline? It's a property line. What is a baseline? It's a concept, it's an idea. The whole legal system, all property rights, all land boundaries are unspoken or spoken and written agreements amongst people. That's all it is. That's all it is. And that's the idea behind how you common lens and how you take the technology that we've been gifted. Oh my gosh, have we been gifted an amazing thing that we call blockchain that gets drug through the mud because of all of the things that bad people do with it. But ultimately it's a tool to allow people to reach consensus without having to know each other or even know what they're saying and what they're doing instantly, globally, with infinite view and infinite knowledge into it, it's an instant. Anytime you verify something on the blockchain, a piece of data or whatever, it's an instant understanding of all of the case law or agreements that have happened globally, universally within the system. It is amazing.
- [49:04]
B
Yeah, guys, I love this and I have so many points I want to bring on this. My wife just returned from Namibia. She was with the San people for the last two weeks. And all of the stories that you're talking about with your Uganda case are the same stories that she brought from Namibia, right? So the San people, they're forgotten the government, you know, they don't get anything anymore. It's a really struggle because ownership of land is the exact issue that they face, right. Et cetera. But look, we are coming to the end, unfortunately. We have been together already for an hour, guys, and it's been amazing so far. And so I usually try to end the conversation in this series with a question for you both. And it's a simple answer. And it was, it's kind of like if you, I've posed it in a few different ways. What's low hanging fruit, you know, that you think organizations should, should think about with technology. Another way that I've described it is if you were going under your Christmas tree, what's the one gift that you would want to be able to give to your NGO colleagues. What's that? That, that, that knowledge that. To portray to them. So I'm going to Talk for about 10 more seconds so you guys can think about it and then I'm going to call on you both to kind of give me that answer. But firstly, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you both for joining me today in this podcast. Like I said, we could have gone on for hours. This could just be a rolling thing. Maybe we could just do a series together.
- [50:32]
D
We might have to,
- [50:36]
B
but it's been a great conversation. But maybe, Eric, I'll start with you on what, what is, what is that low hanging fruit that you can bring into care, but also to the sector in and of itself, or what, what is that gift you think that they should be able to open and receive this Christmas? What, what is that?
- [50:58]
D
It might be two parts.
- [51:00]
B
It's always two. Don't worry. I always say one and everybody says, I've got two. So I'm always like, it's fine. One's a stocking stuffer and then one's the big gift. Go for it.
- [51:08]
D
So the stalking stuffer would be, please don't build. You're not a tech company, so don't build. The solutions have been built by people who know how to build. Our job is to sensitize the use of these things. So we need to understand how it could help us and we need to figure out how to explain to our beneficiaries how it'll help them and train them to understand how this is going to change their livelihoods or their life or their lifestyle or their environment.
- [51:50]
C
Don't build.
- [51:51]
D
Look for local providers who are building things that are contextually relevant.
- [51:56]
B
This is a stocking stuffer. What is the present?
- [51:59]
C
Then?
- [52:01]
D
I think it might even. I might just drop the mic there because that's enough.
- [52:06]
B
I think it's worth it. That's a mic drop.
- [52:08]
D
I love it. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, and also, like, look locally first because usually the local tech providers, the local developers have addressed the issue at a level that no one else can. People who understand the context of where they're working are usually building better solutions to that. So if you can support on that front, then let's go there first and then we can look externally. So, yeah, those are my, my gems.
- [52:44]
B
Those are perfect gems. Darius, over to you, my friend.
- [52:49]
C
So the question is, if you have one gift from the NGO community that you can open up tomorrow, what would it be. And the biggest gift I think leadership and the NGOs can give to the world and their beneficiaries is to remember the curiosity they had as a child, the lack of fear to experiment, the lack of fear to jump in headfirst and learn by doing.
- [53:29]
D
I love it.
- [53:29]
B
I love it, I love it. Guys, I really can't thank you enough. And it's so refreshing to have this conversation with the two of you and know that there are like minded people out there trying to do the right thing with tech and seeing how the future looks and knowing that there is a wind behind us, pushing us forward. I think that that's really, really true. And we all, I mean, okay, Darius and I kind of sit in similar seats, so to say, in terms of what we're doing in different ways with similar and also disparate technologies. And I think, Eric, you being in that seat where you are today and being able to speak the way that you did, financial inclusion, digital inclusion, it's about the right tech for the right problem in the right place and identifying that and then being the not arbiter, being the evangelist, and I think that's super important. So, Eric and Darius, I can't thank you enough for your time. You know, it's early for you. Darius, I know that you're in pst. Eric, you're est, I'm cet. So we're all trying to get our time zones together. So I do want to thank you both for your time today. And yeah, everyone, listeners, this has been an amazing episode of Humanitarian Frontiers on the Edge. Chris Hoffman, your host. Keep listening, keep trying, keep asking questions. Darius, I love it. The curiosity, the art of the possible. What is possible today and where can we go in the future? So thank you both very much.
- [55:24]
C
It was a pleasure. Thank you.
- [55:26]
D
All right, have a good one, guys.
- [55:37]
A
Thanks for joining us on Humanitarian Frontiers on the Edge. If today's conversation sparked new ideas, new questions, or new ways of thinking about what's possible, then we've done our job. This podcast is brought to you by HumanityLink. Working at the intersection of technology and humanity to help deliver aid faster, smarter, and with greater accountability. Until next time, stay curious, stay grounded, and keep pushing the frontier.