chepicap.com
The non profit grant making platform, that focuses on companies that are looking to use blockchain to make a social impact, known as Social Alpha Foundation, has announced that it is giving a $150k grant to Yale openlab.
Yale openlab is a newly launched team comprising of the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. They specialize in developing open source projects that try to address serious environmental issues. With this grant from the Social Alpha Foundation, Yale openlab plans to be the first go-to institution for connecting blockchain with climate change solutions.
This grant specifically will go into two of the main focus projects that Yale openlab currently has. The first is consolidating its skill based blockchain ecosystem, and the second being launching an initiative called the Open Earth Challenge, which is aiming to build an open source blockchain framework for a decentralized consensus on earth's carbon budget. Yale openlab’s long term goal is to provide the framework for adoption worldwide to provide increased transparency to the world’s carbon lifeline.
The founder of Yale openlab, Martin Wainstein, Ph.D., spoke on how this grant is going to help them reach their goal:
“Climate change is a global issue that requires immediate attention. Our Earth’s atmosphere can hold a limited amount of CO2 emissions before the global average temperature rises above levels deemed as safe for humanity. At present, if emissions continue to be left unchecked, our limited carbon budget could be consumed in as little as 15 years. This challenge requires people and organizations to collaborate at an unprecedented scale, and reimagine traditional business models and paradigms. The Paris climate agreement has set the world on a path to zero emissions by 2050, but we lack the global tools that can help us track our environmental actions in a trustless and competitive world. We believe a constellation of blockchain technology, data oracles, and internet-connected sensors under open source protocols and standards may provide the fabric for globally trusted procedures to emerge, and we are immensely grateful to Social Alpha Foundation for allowing us to inspire and educate the next generation in how to apply blockchain capably and ethically for environmental impact.”
The co-founder and Chairman of Social Alpha Foundation, Nydia Zhang, also spoke on their decision for generously offering the no strings attached grant to Yale openlabs:
“Yale openlab’s unparalleled expertise in climate change research, longstanding credibility at the governmental level, and its open innovation framework means new ideas, products, and services will be conceived in a transparent and shareable, rather than proprietary, format. We look forward to seeing how Martin and the Yale openlab team will leverage blockchain and distributed ledger technologies to enable collaborative projects which are part of this emerging third wave of the internet, and how this will positively impact the environment.”