San Francisco-based Fintech company Ripple recently released an official statement announcing the launch of their social program, dubbed “Ripple for Good (RfG)”. The blockchain startup will commit $105 million in funding a number of projects with much emphasis on education and financial inclusion across the world.
Ripple plans to work with RippleWorks. This is a non-profit organization co-founded by Chris Larsen and Doug Galen. According to Doug Galen, the organization has already completed over 70 projects in more than fifty countries spread across the world.
RfG is, therefore, looking forward to learning from – and building on – RippleWorks’ experience addressing financial exclusion across the globe. It will do so by identifying organizations and ventures to support.
The Ripple team says that the charity program will focus particularly on educational programs, especially in mathematics, engineering, technology, and science. The company’s contributions to teaching and research in blockchain, through the University Blockchain Research Initiative, are intended to promote broader understanding, adoption, and innovation in computer science, business and finance, cutting-edge research into the blockchain sector and many more. Specially, RfG will focus on applications and real-world use cases with the potential for scalable social impact.
Ripple Lab co-founder and Chairman Chris Larsen said:
“We have to stop being self-righteous disruptors and instead focus on building things that solve real-world problems. If we focus the blockchain movement on that, over two billion underbanked people can become full economic citizens.”
A few months ago, Ripple donated $50 million to 17 educational institutions around the globe to promote research and encourage adoption of the blockchain technology and digital money. The beneficiaries included Australian National University, Korea University, University College London, UC Berkley, IIT, MIT, and Princeton.
In early spring, the blockchain company donated $29 million to the crowdfunding project DonorsChoose. The donation fulfilled 35.647 requests from 28.210 public school teachers that were posted on the DonorsChoose’s website.