Attendees of the Global Forum on Remittances, Investment, and Development cast ballots on blockchain in the Innovation Awards for the first time
The Central Bank of Malaysia, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the World Bank welcome registered participants to the first regional Global Forum on Remittances, Investment, and Development – Asia-Pacific (GFRID 2018) to vote in the RemTECH Industry Choice Award. The GFRID 2018 gathers high-level representatives of Member States, international organizations, private sector, and civil society with interest in the Asia-Pacific remittance marketplace to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where the winner will be announced on May 8th at the RemTECH Awards 2018 ceremony.
To truly embrace the RemTECH Awards’ mission of bringing remittance innovation forward, Yokip Consulting with Australian blockchain startup, Horizon State, developed the RemTECH blockchain voting application to increase accountability of the winner selection, as well as showcase the capabilities of the blockchain. Through a lean and transparent process designed to reduce voter fraud, the application verifies GFRID participants and publicly stores their anonymous ballots on the Ethereum blockchain for anyone to view directly. As a result, the voting data is stored in several places at once — on over 20,000 nodes at the time of writing — keeping the information decentralized and safe from manipulation.
After the vote is committed to the blockchain, voters are notified of their transaction number to allow them to check if their vote was accurately counted. The application also ensures votes are only submitted during the designated activation period, which began on April 23rd and ends at 3 pm on May 8th (Kuala Lumpur time), just a couple of hours before the RemTECH Awards Ceremony, starting at 5:30 pm. Furthermore, auditors checking for voter fraud can confirm voters only voted once and were accurately tallied by referencing the transaction data.
Last week, the judging panel selected the most innovative and outstanding ideas, solutions, and projects designed to improve remittance services worldwide from the nearly forty entries using an early version of the blockchain voting application. The judges chose nine award winners and mentions, which are the entries that make up the industry choice ballot.
The transparency and accountability of the blockchain voting application aims to solidify the coveted validation the awards brings to recipients. RemTECH Co-Chair and Founder of Yokip Consulting, Olivia Chow, explains, “Anyone deserves the opportunity to review if the counting process was conducted fairly. Blockchain offers a record, auditable by anyone with the patience, to examine whether the vote was conducted according to the rules.”
Horizon State chief product officer, Jamie Skella, adds, “Inviting GFRID participants to interact with blockchain through our voting application is a great opportunity to encourage discussion about the merits and use cases of the technology, while showcasing the potential impact it has to a range of industries.”
About the RemTECH Awards:
The RemTECH Awards were created by IMTC Conferences to highlight the important role of technology in achieving United Nation’s SDGs. Since 2017, they showcase ground-breaking solutions that contribute to the development, transparency, speed, cost, and reliability of the remittance industry. For more information about The RemTECH Awards visit: https://remtech.org/
About Horizon State:
Horizon State has built a secure community engagement and voting platform that delivers unprecedented trust through the integrity and post-unforgeable attributes of blockchain technology. The platform delivers collaborative decision-making tools wherein results can never be altered, and identities are protected. For more information about Horizon State visit: https://horizonstate.com
