How AID:Tech’s Digital Wallet is Merging Digital Identity With Payments

Foreign aid is the practice of sending monetary funds and resources to countries in particular need of assistance, which is usually humanitarian-related. It’s a practice that’s been taking place for decades now and continues to be a method in allocating support. The only thing that has changed is how it is sent and received. Enter new age technology and the concept of digital wallets and blockchain, which are now mediums that can be utilized to transfer aid.

How can digital wallets be used in offering foreign aid support?

For the latest “Gossip About Gossip,” episode host Zenobia Godschalk, also the SVP of Communications at Swirlds Labs, interviewed Niall Dennehy, COO and Co-Founder of AID:Tech — an Ireland-based company aimed at delivering aid through blockchain. They talked about Dennehy’s background with blockchain, the creation of his company, and becoming a leader in transforming foreign aid and innovating a new method for it.

Godschalk and Dennehy also covered on …

1. The types of sectors that have utilized AID:Tech, such as remittances and healthcare
2. The early stages of AID:Tech starting out in refugee camp
3. Dennehy’s solution to learning that 30 percent of aid goes missing annually and making an impact with technology

“We approached the Red Cross, we told them there’s this new technology out there, we’d love to try it and we think an ideal use case is international aid. So, we did a project in a refugee camp — it happened in Lebanon, and we proved that we could send aid over blockchain, and we can bring traceability and transparency to the process,” said Dennehy. “We soon realized that there are over a billion people on the planet without any form of digital identity — identity for that matter, and we thought if you combine and you merge digital identity with payments and if you focus on the value proposition of traceability and transparency, you can create some compelling use cases.”

Niall Dennehy is the COO and Co-Founder of AID:Tech, which he helped establish in 2015 with Joseph Thompson. He is also the Co-Founder of Imprez. Dennehy’s background is in software design and development and used to work in banking.