[AUDIENCE] I'm distinctly interested in innovation and pushing out the boundaries of possibilities.
In the future, I certainly want to see a lot more when it comes to women being involved.
I'm really interested in what projects you see, where the use of cryptocurrency or blockchains has inspired you.
What has been most inspiring project you've seen, that can actually help inspire people to think beyond...
what we're actually witnessing now?
[ANDREAS] That's a tough question. A lot of the things I see [sometimes] are boring and quite disappointing.
Another ICO, another person trying to reinvent the existing system, only now "plus blockchain!"
"Let's build a bank - with blockchain." "Let's do an investment fund - with blockchain."
"Let's build a transportation company - with blockchain."
Everything, "with blockchain."
[But] you don't need "blockchain" for most of those things. Why? That's boring.
One of the most inspiring stories I heard is from a woman called Fereshteh Forough.
She is a woman from Afghanistan who is running a program called "CodeToInspire,"
a program that teaches teenage girls in Afghanistan how to write software,
which is something they can do in the privacy of their own home with a cheap laptop...
and without anybody knowing what they're actually doing.
Then [they learn] how to sell software programming services and earn cryptocurrency that they control,
in a country where it is illegal for women to own property.
That is inspirational. [Applause]
There are a couple charities doing interesting work in Bitcoin and with other cryptocurrencies.
One of them is called BitGive Foundation, a woman- owned organisation and registered non-profit charity.
They have a program called GiveTrack, using the radical transparency of the blockchain in order to give donors...
the opportunity to watch their donation,
all the way down to purchasing the bricks that go into a water well project in Kenya.
They're taking on a problem that is fairly big in the charitable world: accountability for donors' money.
In many charities, less than 50% of the money donated actually goes to the charitable causes.
A lot of it goes toward administrative costs, etc.
Here, you can watch your donation, see where parts of it end up, and track it all he way to the charitable project.
GiveTrack, I think that's a really interesting project.
There are a number of others like that. They're few and far between at the moment.
Most people are trying to make money as fast as they can and get rich.
But every now and then, I meet some really inspiring, humble individuals who are doing fascinating work.
Thank you for asking that question. Do you have a follow-up?
[AUDIENCE] Can I just add another question: what would you like to see?
[ANDREAS] I think the most important project that people could be working on right now,
and there are a couple of companies [doing so],
is to address the issue of international remittances.
Remittances is when immigrant, migrant, or itinerant workers send money to their home countries...
while working abroad, often as illegal or undocumented laborers and farming workers.
In countries [or regions] including the United States, the United Kingdom, and northern Europe,
but also southeast Asia; there's a lot migrant workers in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Sending your money home is a $550 billion business, each year.
Of that, $175 billion goes to fees and profits for two or three companies:
Western Union, MoneyGram, Wells Fargo, and a few others.
This is basically taking a significant chunk of money from the world's poorest people.
Ironically enough, $175 billion happens to be the total sum of foreign financial aid,
by all governments in the world, donated each year.
The same amount that governments are spending to "support" poor people around the world,
by giving it to [those at] the top [of the country's political system], [where] none of it gets to the bottom,
is what the money transfer companies are taking from the bottom [of the economic ladder].
Instead of trying to fix foreign aid, how about letting those people keep their own money?
We can do remittances with cryptocurrencies, which will involve breaking a lot of laws (no licenses).
You have someone here who buys [some amount of a] cryptocurrency [with ringgit],
that cryptrocurrency is transmitted to another country, and [then] gets converted to cash for the recipient.
[With that], you basically have a system of remittances that is informal and in some cases [possibly] illegal.
But it injects $175 billion into directly into the pockets of the poorest people on earth.
Not only that, the recipients of remittances are 85% women.
The World Bank estimated that for every dollar [those women] get, it generates $2.50 of economic activity,
primarily in education, healthcare, sanitation, security, and food security most importantly.
This is where cryptocurrencies could deliver enormous benefits to some of the poorest people in the world.
In fact, they don't even need to know they are using cryptocurrencies.
Some of the best applications out there just hide that.
The cryptocurrency is just a pipe that's used to send money across the borders,
which is the hardest part.
The fees can be less than 1%, [which would be] significantly undercutting Western Union.
There's one small downside: if this plan is successful, Western Union, who invented wire transfers in '96...
Did you know that? They invented wire transfers in 1896, not 1996. [Laughter]
Unfortunately, they would go out of business.
At least on this side, not a single tear will be shed. [Laughter] That inspires me. [Applause]