A short while ago I demo’ed the world’s first payment for electricity using Bitcoin. A conference was held at MIT in Boston, USA and one bitcoin was sent directly to a smart meter installed at a small school in South Africa. The smart meter system was using my crypto-prepaid system and converted the bitcoin into electricity for the school.

Emaweni Primary School — Soweto, South Africa

A great article was published on Coindesk which can be found here:
http://www.coindesk.com/south-african-primary-school-blockchain

Max Keiser from the Keiser Report was intrigued and I was interviewed on his show. Max rightly identified that this marked the beginning of a new paradigm for foreign aid where donors could now directly fund the causes they believe in without having to trust an organisation that would opaquely distribute funds and garnish costs from the payment. They could now trust that the entire amount was used only to pay for that school’s electricity.

Keiser Report Interview

There are hundreds of schools in South Africa that have limited government budgets and simply cannot afford the costs of electricity, let alone other basic amenities and maintenance costs. I have received an overwhelming response from people all around the world who would love to be able to fund these schools using cryptocurrencies.

I am currently developing a crowd funding platform called Usizo, which means “Help” in Zulu. Needy schools will be listed and donors will be able to see details about them, specifically how much electricity they need till the end of the month. Donors will then be able to make a donation in Bitcoin or any of the other top cryptocurrencies which will go directly to a blockchain-aware smart meter installed at the school and used to purchase electricity.

Here is a non-functional version of the Usizo platform which I will be releasing soon.

http://secret.usizo.org