In light of the recent devastation of hurricanes Jose & Irma, I’ve been thinking about the hundreds of thousands of people who’ve lost their possessions, their homes, businesses and sadly, their loved-ones.

The US government has responded with a $15.6 billion hurricane relief fund but this raises a series of questions:

How much of the $15.6 billion will reach the people in need? How long will it take to reach them? How can transparency over every transaction be achieved to ensure the money is going where it’s needed most?

I have some high level thoughts on a better system below:

1The adoption of e-wallets owned and managed by each individual through a smartphone app like Omise Co or TenX allows the user to spend and manage the digital asset in their wallet without the need of a bank account. Imagine having USD, GBP, EUR, Bitcoins or airline miles in a single [e-wallet] account. Each digital asset has a value and can be converted into the relevant currency at the point of sale with no intermediaries and low transaction fees by simply spending via the e-wallet card they have.

e-wallet provider TenX — Photo by https://www.tenx.tech/

2Individuals are e-registered on a decentralised, cryptographically secure e-register something not too different from what the Swiss or Estonias are launching today, powered by Blockchain technology. Unlike the Equifax data breach of +150 million users private information, a decentralised distributed ledger technology provide far superior security and privacy that can only be unlocked via the owner of the data and the correct recipient. It would store the address so the users affected by the hurricanes would immediately be made known and flagged on the database without ever disclosing the individuals identity.

Estonia e-residency powered on via blockchain technology — Photo by https://e-resident.gov.ee/

3A decentralised crowdfunding platform would be used to raise funds to donate money in fiat and or cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum and utilising the Power of Smart Contracts built on the Ethereum Blockchain, conditions can be programmed in BEFORE funds are raised to allocate them it to the relevant places automatically after the funding has ended. Hence, the donator would know in advance who the money is going to, how it will get their and how much will be sent directly to the victims impacted by disaster.

4Funds would be AirDropped, the process of sending Bitcoins or Ethereum directly to the e-wallets of all the victims in the impacted areas at once with no intermediaries blocking or slowing down the process. The e-wallet would receive Bitcoins or Ethereum but the e-wallet would convey back to the local currency at the point of sale. This would enable the victims to be able to use the money immediately to start rebuilding their lives. The airdrop might be like this – £10,000 worth of Bitcoins per person, sent directly to their e-wallet address for immediate use within minutes of the crisis.

5Crowdfundings can have predetermined fund allocations such as 70% directly to victims, 10% allocated to centralised orgs (police, ambulance, rescue response teams) with full transparency and oversight of use of funds to support the relief and the remaining 20% to charities providing support in the way of shelter, food and clothing, and mental support.

6 Donators can see, in realtime, the impact of their donations, knowing with certain confidence that they made a difference to those in need and give more confidence to others to participate.