The Interledger Community 🌱: Chris Lawrence

List of Red Flags for funders in grant proposals

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 14:33:47 +0000

Hi all! I found this to be a great list of things we/funders see as Red Flags in a grant proposal. Since we have multiple grant opportunities open I thought I would share this here.

Happy to answer questions, discuss further on this thread.

ILF Web Monetization Town Hall recording, Q&A answers and public meeting notes

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 20:52:54 +0000

Thanks to all of you who joined us last week to discuss the Coil closure and where Web Monetization is heading. Watch the recording below or on our YouTube channel if you couldn't make the call.

In the call we committed to answering questions from the community. We have created this document that answers your questions to the best of our ability right now.

Here are the public notes document from the meeting

Changes to the Web Monetization ecosystem discussion post

Chris Lawrence — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 19:09:14 +0000

Today, our friends at Coil announced they are ceasing operations. We’d like to thank the Coil team for their foundational support and contributions in the ILF journey, and we are truly proud of the amazing community of creators and developers we built together.

While our two organizations have worked very closely over the past 2 years, ILF has always been an independent foundation and will continue the groundbreaking work started by Coil on web monetization and financial inclusion through open payments.

Through this transition, we are committed to supporting our community and welcome questions about the Interledger Foundation, the Interledger Protocol, and our technology moving forward.

Please use this post to ask questions, raise issues or note how this will affect your work. We hope to be able to address your concerns over the coming weeks, and we will start by using our Open Payments Huddle next week to host a Town Hall discussion. We will reschedule the Researcher's Round-table discussion we had planned.

Details for Town Hall:

Date: February 9, 2023
Time: 10:00 am EST / 3:00 pm UTC / 6:00 pm EAT
Register here

So please post your questions, share your views, and we’ll do our best to bring you the latest news and updates as they happen.

Speakers and sessions for the ILP Summit announced!

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 26 Oct 2022 19:21:44 +0000

The Interledger Summit 2022 is just around the corner! Join us on November 12-13 in New Orleans, LA.

33 speakers confirmed over 25 sessions with leaders from Financial Inclusion and Open Payments at Interledger Foundation, Coil, Mojaloop Foundation, UNCDF, USAID, Fynbos, and more. All sessions share experiences, while celebrating the vital work in the financial inclusion and payments space.

Over the course of two days, you’ll join industry leaders, lead engaging panels & sessions, and enjoy all The Big Easy has to offer!

Explore Agenda and learn more about how to participate here.

Announcing our ILP-Based Financial Services Research and Development Grants

Chris Lawrence — Mon, 10 Oct 2022 16:11:26 +0000

The Interledger Foundation champions advocacy for Interledger, an open protocol that permits frictionless payments and micropayments across currencies and ledgers, enabling opportunities for broader global financial inclusion. Our mission is to build equitable pathways to financial access and digital participation.

Funded projects range from a coalition of credit unions in rural Mexico, tooling to measure impact investing, a program to facilitate cross-border small business loans, and other ideas to expand how people can benefit from the Interledger Protocol.

To build on our mission and goals, we will need more people to experiment and innovate in the Interledger-enabled network, so we are thrilled to announce twelve recipients of our Financial Services awards. These twelve projects will receive funds to cover 6-months of research to explore compelling use cases for ILP-enabled digital wallets, neobanks and community platforms.

We were thrilled by the response we had to this award program and are excited to support these projects as they learn, grow and build in the Interledger ecosystem. It is mission critical that we expand the ILP network and activate nodes throughout the globe who will open up new opportunities to expand financial inclusion. I am proud that these projects demonstrate the diversity in our ecosystem and support our core belief that we need the people experiencing the problems to be imagining solutions. - Briana Marbury, ILF Executive Director.

Submitted projects came through a global call for proposals launched in June and were reviewed by a panel of judges made up of staff and partners of the Interledger Foundation. Successful grantees in our newest cohort come from ten different countries.

See the official announcement on the Interledger Foundation website.

Paystreme

MyWalletGuru, LLC, USA

Wallet Guru is an American financial technology company operating digital currency payment solutions with an initial focus on Latin America. The company is developing a payment streaming platform called Paystreme that enables users to pay in real-time for services. Users can send payments per second as they consume services such as cell phone coverage, broadband internet, pay TV, and content streaming platforms.

BessPay

BessPay, Jamaica

BessPay is an affordable subscription-based content monetization & hassle-free payment service for creators in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean.

It connects creators to Interledger Protocol-enabled platforms and services through Mobile Carrier Billing & other local digital payment solutions.

BessPay aims to enable most Jamaicans and Caribbean nationals with mobile phones to participate in the emerging global digital economy through Content Creation, Web Monetization, and open payment systems.

ENEZA

BITKE Blockchain Consultancy Ltd, Kenya

ENEZA will provide the general public with the potential to access microcredit capabilities. Due to high interest rates and compliance measures, most people don't qualify for microlending services. This solution will expose Microfinance Institutions and Co-operative Societies to global Web3 lending sources with off-chain collateralization and credit scores. ENEZA seeks to be the transformative gateway for these sectors, acting as enablers for poverty alleviation, prioritizing women in low-income households and rural areas, unemployed youth, and persons living with a disability.

MUDA OTC Escrow

Muda ventures, Uganda

Building an FX liquidity marketplace infrastructure that will ease the pain points of cross-border payments, MUDA is looking to digitize the process by implementing a solution that will apply the ILP technology to digitize and improve the way the current cross-border liquidity is aggregated, managed, and utilized.

Snake Nation As- A-Tier 1 ILPS

Snake Nation. PYT.Ltd, South Africa/USA

Snake Nation is a mission driven, culture content and tech company, focused on creating economic opportunities for young M2 (multicultural millennial) creators through a frictionless and diverse digital and creative economy. One of the significant current gaps in the ILP network is access to local African Nodes with the ability to use a Tier 1 ILP capable wallet on the African continent and other Global South countries like South East - Asia, and South America. Snake Nation plans to develop a Tier 1 ILPv4 Network through its University Society Network as a foundational solution to an open payment system, a key pillar of Africa 4.0 ( 4th Industrial revolution). The Africa.4.0 rollout will begin in 10 countries, driving adoption of the Snake Nation ILP-enabled wallet. Our Tier 1 ILPv4 infrastructure is a step forward for financial inclusion, and for the creative economy in the Global South.

The People's Clearinghouse

AMUCSS Mexican Association of Credit Unions of the Social Sector, Mexico

The People's Clearinghouse is a social innovation project to benefit the broader public, specifically rural and indigenous people who have organized themselves into co-ops. Millions of co-op account holders have been historically excluded from the Mexican payment system. As a result they must deal with time-consuming and risky travel to access their money in cash. This project intends to research how the clearinghouse can be a successful connector for small rural co-ops of Mexico to the Mexican central bank and among themselves using the Interledger Protocol.

An Inclusive Payment Network for the Unbanked and Underbanked in Myanmar

ThitsaWorks, incorporated in Singapore and Myanmar

ThitsaWorks provides solutions to power financial inclusion, currently focusing on the digital transformation of the Myanmar microfinance sector through enabling digital payments and building their capacities to implement digital strategies. In this project, ThitsaWorks will conduct research and development to build a prototype of a connector, which will enable Tier-2 and Tier-3 financial institutions, including low-capacity financial institutions such as microfinance institutions, non-banks, mobile money, and rural banks, to participate in an interoperable real-time payment network. This project seeks to address for the lack of interoperability, siloed networks and inaccessibility of services for unbanked and underbanked in Myanmar.

Cheeri

Divao LLC, USA

Cheeri helps social purpose organizations, impact funders, and investors create, manage, measure, and fund impact-driven projects. Cheeri aims to make impact funding and investing scalable through automated reimbursement based on impact metrics. Using ILP, Cheeri enables the exchange of social, environmental, and other common-good impacts for currencies, including fiat and crypto. For example, when an impact funder decides to fund a social purpose organization, they can create a dedicated impact token that the funded organization can redeem for their currency of choice.

Kult's ILP Open-Source Digital Wallet

Kult (Paginas Esbeltas LLC), Brazil/Portugal

Kult is a social platform for curating movies, TV series, books, podcasts, and songs that promote diverse cultural exchange between people and communities. With the mission of bringing value to human curation, it aims to create an open-source digital wallet that any platform can easily replicate. Focusing on financial inclusion for the Brazilian population, it also seeks to integrate the wallet with the PIX structure -- an instant and free electronic payment method offered by the Central Bank of Brazil with over 130 million users per month. Although being developed on Kult initially, the benefits of such innovation would be much broader, as it would allow anyone to implement the same wallet on their platforms and start monetizing people online. Therefore, Kult would be creating a tool that provides platforms with an accessible way to allow peer-to-peer monetization using ILP.

Universal Wallet

CryptoSavannah, Uganda

CryptoSavannah is a digital transformation company building technology solutions and providing advisory services to usher Africa into the digital economy. The Universal Wallet is a solution that addresses problems of delays, inefficiency, and inadequacy of existing programs in loyalty and rewards programs. The solution is a single digital wallet, a simple mobile application on a phone where rewards are captured and easily managed. The Universal Wallet will also be an entry point to identity, the cornerstone of the digital economy, while creating an interoperable platform to facilitate a wide range of financial applications. The platform seeks to extend financial inclusion by enabling people to have a wallet that accepts value, stores it, and can be used for transactions. With the ILP potentially enabling transactions, the platform can be used by many entities, from supermarkets, telecoms, utility providers, and insurance companies to health service providers.

COOL LION FI

Direct Impact Partners (BRAND NAME: COOL LION FINANCE), Côte d'Ivoire

COOL LION FI aims to secure a full-stack license (money transmitter/electronic money/microfinance license) for Francophone Africa through which businesses can earn, buy, sell, trade, and share cross-borders. As a node in the Interledger Network with valid local licenses, the goal is to facilitate cross-border business equipment loans sourced from foreign fiat and crypto lenders and reach businesses in Africa.

AgnostiPay

Spendies B.V., Netherlands

AgnostiPay's open-source technology allows the community of developers to take control of payments and enable Self-Sovereign Payments for their end-users - empowered by ILP. The project does not focus on creating a single node within a particular country but makes the possibility for developers to enable thousands of users in using ILP-nodes for self-sovereign payments, using a single piece of open-source code by leveraging the end-user credentials. The value unlocked by ILP-empowered AgnostiPay technology opens up the ILP network for additional payments. It can be used in many situations, such as e-commerce, mobile apps, and fintech infrastructures.

Unifying the Interledger Foundation Community

Chris Lawrence — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 23:15:23 +0000

You may have noticed some slight branding changes to this space. We have renamed this space from "Web Monetization" to "Interledger Foundation." In the last few days we have:

Changed the url from community.webmonetization.org to community.interledger.org (redirects are in place!)
Changed the name to the Interledger Foundation Community
Updated the logo and other branding

We did this because as we have grown from the Grant for the Web program into the Interledger Foundation, we have increased our mission and scope to include all the functions the Interledger Protocol can unlock to create opportunities for more people to participate in then global economy. This still includes content creators, Web Monetization and all the work we house in this space, but now it will encompass all the work we do at ILF.

The reality is that, other then some minor branding changes, you won't see much change on what happens in this community forum. It will still be the place to read/submit grant reports, learn about activities at ILF, and most importantly connect with others in the community working on similar projects and trying to design solutions toward financial inclusion for more people.

Here are the other ways to connect with the Interledger Foundation Community

Stefan Thomas on the state of Blockchain

Chris Lawrence — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 21:00:42 +0000

Our Interledger Foundation Board Chair Stefan Thomas
published timely thoughts about the Blockchain hype, backlash and a way forward. He focuses on interoperability issues and what the Interledger Protocol is doing to advance the open architecture of digital payments. Also a fun history lesson on the web!

Blockchain Is Stuck in the 80s
First it was LUNA. Now, it’s Celsius. These are the types of projects that seem to make sense on the way up but less so on the way down. That they got so large and out of hand is a reflection of blockchain’s ongoing pain point: So much of the space is still built on hype and speculation rather than value-adding use cases.

Read the full post here

Interledger Foundation Strengthening its Infrastructure & Increasing Financial Services Providers in the Ecosystem

Chris Lawrence — Thu, 09 Jun 2022 20:31:58 +0000

Below is repost of an Interledger Foundation blog post by our Executive Director Briana Marbury

On May 17, the Interledger Foundation announced its third Call For Proposal (CFP) since launching almost two years ago. For our friends that have been along with us on this journey since the beginning, you'll notice that this Call is quite different from our earlier iterations. When we first started our grantmaking in 2019, our inaugural CFP was open to just about anyone interested in experimenting with the Interledger Protocol. There was a healthy mix of developers and content creators working on projects that ranged from web monetized content, code repositories, and new platforms experimenting with new business models for the web. From our initial cohort of grantees and subsequent calls afterwards, we were able to garner gems for improvement each time. Through our feedback mechanisms imbedded in the grantmaking process, we have been able to determine which aspects of the Protocol our community is excited about, and some of the barriers and pain points to entry that needs to be eased. So we've made the decision to build the foundational aspects and improve the Interledger Protocol to improve access to the network.

This 2022 CFP for ILP-Based Financial Services represents an evolution of where we are in the development of the infrastructure. The feedback from our community has shown us there is an imperative need to increase the number of financial service providers in the ecosystem -- i.e. wallets, neobanks, etc. With the understanding that there are several challenges involved in standing up a new wallet, we have staggered the award in three stages. The first stage, which represents the current CFP, is to develop a business plan with a complete understanding of the requirements to obtain a money transmitter license in the chosen region of operation. No matter what country a financial service provider is in, there is one given that is constant - regulatory requirements. Although the rules and regulations vary depending on the country or region, there is an inescapable reality concerning the evolution of financial services and the requirements to operate. Moving forward with the most promising and thoroughly researched plans, the next stage of awards involves constructing the actual prototype, followed by the final stage which is a fully functional node on the network with at least one connected peer.

If you're as enthused about the possibility of opening up the ILP network to more users as we are, and this opportunity sounds inviting to you, please consider applying! The current CFP is open until July 8, 2022 and as always, we're here to answer any questions you may have at info@interledger.org.

Thank you,
Briana

Announcing a new call for proposals for ILP-based financial services

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 04 May 2022 13:21:42 +0000

The Interledger Foundation (ILF) and its community are building pathways to financial access and opportunity across the world. We support people and ideas that use the Interledger Protocol (ILP) to contribute to an open payments network built on equitable access through the internet.

In continued service of our mission, and learning from our Grant for the Web program, we are excited to announce the next open Call For Proposals (CFP) to target the creation of more financial nodes in the Interledger network. We will be looking for projects that want to plan and build financial services.

Examples of consumer-facing services we seek to activate as ILP nodes are digital wallets, mobile money providers, banks, neo-banks, and all include these characteristics:

Enables money to be transferred on the ILP network
Permits issuing and housing accounts for individuals and organizations
Uses an Electronic Money Institution license for the region, community, or use case projects will serve
Is designed for interoperability across systems and currencies
Is dedicated to open-source knowledge sharing as a contribution to the emerging ecosystem

"In our two years of grantmaking, we have learned that promise and excitement are not enough for our technology to expand financial access across the globe or to solve local problems. We are at an inflection point in the development of the Interledger Protocol where expanding the network is the critical next step. With this opportunity, we want to help Interledger-driven business models flourish by building on an open standards protocol while solving real problems for real people"

Briana Marbury, Interledger Foundation Executive Director

This CFP will support up to 20 projects through a research, development, and planning phase. This grant opportunity covers phase one, and projects selected in this opening round will be eligible and competitive for round two.

Phases

Research & Planning

We will award up to twenty projects $75K USD for a six-month project timeline in this first grant phase. These awards are planning grants that allow successful applicants to produce a dynamic business plan for becoming a node in the Interledger Network. Awardees will potentially have an opportunity to apply to the Prototyping Phase.

Prototyping

Projects will advance with additional award funding to implement their plan and produce a working prototype/beta version of their service. This phase will focus on practical application and regulatory compliance to stand up a working prototype of the node and the capability it creates for its users.

Launch

Building from the first two phases, we will identify a set of projects that are ready to be operational. With the third round of awards, ILF will fund, support, and help launch fully functioning financial nodes into the Interledger Network.

We will begin accepting applications for the Research and Planning phase on May 17, 2022.

We need new voices and ideas in the Interledger Network

We want to ensure that these financial innovations are coming from and created outside the typical locales and demographics. We seek to support communities that have -- and continue to be -- systemically and deliberately excluded from financial access and empowerment opportunities. For this CFP, we will increase the scoring of the following criteria in our judging process:

Projects located in and serving geographical locations outside North America and Western Europe.
Projects where a lead applicant is a person of color, or the team, represents a diverse group of people.
The output of the team benefits communities that have been historically underrepresented.
Funds are explicitly budgeted to address the increasing participation of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities.

Key details

All applicants must be a formal entity such as a company, NGO, educational institution, government agency, or other documented collective.
The Call for Proposals will be open from May 17 to July 8, 2022.
We will award up to 20 recipients at $75K USD in funds.
The cohort will kick off in 2022.
All details on requirements and processes will be shared when the application opens.
We use Submittable for our application process.
We will have two open office hours before the application form goes live, on May 12 at 12:00 pm UTC, and May 13 at 7:00 pm UTC
We will be answering questions on our Interledger Slack

Stefan Thomas & Brad Stone talk Web3, Blockchain & the Open Source Movement

Chris Lawrence — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:20:27 +0000

Tune into Twitter Spaces on Thursday, 2/24 at 1PM PT | 4PM ET to hear Coil CEO/Interledger Board Chairperson
Stefan Thomas and New York Times bestselling author and journalist Brad Stone unpack Web3, Blockchain & the Open Source Movement.

Use this thread for comments and discussion!

Announcing a tipping experiment at the Mozilla Festival

Chris Lawrence — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 22:05:36 +0000

We know the Web Monetization community has been waiting an opportunity to experiment with new Web Monetization features. Finally, we have our chance! In partnership with Mozilla and Coil, we are excited to host a MozFest-wide experiment in tipping!

MozFest is fully virtual this year, and all ticket holders (last year there were 10,000+) will be given a free Coil account, prepopulated with $10 USD of credits that can be used to stream micropayments and to tip single amounts. Our aim is to use these peer-to-peer payments across the festival to introduce attendees to Interledger and Web Monetization technology while supporting resources benefitting the free and open web.

Here's how to participate

Get a ticket:
The best way to join the experiment is to get a MozFest ticket. This gets you on the mailing list for the Coil accounts with tipping. Tickets are 'Pay what you can'. Feel free to use award funds to purchase a ticket, and if you are unable to contribute much at this time, know that the Interledger Foundation is supporting the festival as a top-level sponsor.

MozFest is awesome and having a ticket gives you access to amazing sessions, experiences, and resources.

Join the GftW Community Call
On Thursday, February 24 at 12:00pm Eastern the community call will focus on Interledger and Coil's tipping experiment. Join us to hear more details and learn how to participate. To register, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/266176550227

Be an advocate
We want MozFest attendees to see the results of this experiment in real-time, so we are looking for dynamic content creators we can highlight. You'll need to have a payment pointer, content that's relevant to the festival that you can web monetize, and the willingness to publicly share how much you are earning as part of the tipping experiment throughout the festival. In return, we'll point attendees towards you and your work. If interested let us know in the comments or email us.

Feature your content
There are potentially 1000s of people ready to stream and tip Web Monetized projects and content. This is a great opportunity to prepare your site, platform, and content to welcome these new Web Monetized consumers. Add your payment pointer to the community space if you haven't done so already. We will be pointing festival attendees to this space, which will feature participant content, community resources, and will help participants understand and experiment with Web Monetization using their Coil credits.

Share with us your social benefit payment pointers
We know signing up for a wallet and getting a payment pointer can be huge hurdles. To ensure all festival attendees can participate in this experiment, we will provide a list of social benefit payment pointers so participants can Web Monetize their festival resources and benefit a charity, without having to get a payment pointer. If your project benefits the free and open web, send us your payment pointer and we will add it to the list.

Already involved with MozFest?
We know many of you plan to participate in the festival. If you are wrangling, facilitating a session, or taking part in any other way, let us know. We need the community's help to make this experiment a success.

We hope you're as excited as we are about watching this experiment unfold!

Welcome new GftW awardee: Black Web Fest

Chris Lawrence — Tue, 08 Feb 2022 21:47:50 +0000

We are excited to announce that Black Web Fest x Web Monetization is a new awardee and a part of our January 2022 cohort. Many of you have interacted with Victoria Cokeron this space, so please welcome her and project on the newest part of their journey.

Project details:

The pandemic disproportionately impacted creators of color. According to a report by the "Americans for the Arts," Black, Indigenous, artists of color had higher rates of unemployment than white artists in 2020 and lost a larger percentage of their creative income.

Black Web Fest x Web Monetization will address these issues by teaching Black creators about the benefits and utility of Web Monetization. During the project, organizers will engage the Black Web Fest community through a film competition, a virtual marketing course, and digital publicity course. All the courses will be recorded, transcribed, and available for playback on Blackwebfest.org.

Team includes: Victoria Coker, Leiana Spooner