Press Releases

Celo Foundation Announces Alliance for Prosperity to Build Financial Tools for 5.6B Smartphone Owners

Grameen is now a founding member of Celo Foundation's Alliance for Prosperity. We are pleased to share this announcement about the Alliance's goals and the launch of this exciting initiative.

Grameen Foundation, Mercy Corps, and Andreessen Horowitz among 50 initial member organizations of decentralized, global ecosystem

San Francisco, CA (March 11, 2020) -- The Celo Foundation, a nonprofit supporting the development of the Celo open blockchain platform, today announced the launch of the Alliance for Prosperity: a mission-aligned network of organizations fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology. As part of these efforts, Alliance Members, which include leading technology providers, nonprofits, mobile wallets, payment processors, and global investment firms, will build mobile-friendly financial tools on top of the Celo open blockchain platform. The Alliance’s goal is to enable more people to use digital currencies — empowering anyone with a phone number towards a prosperous future.

Made up of 50 initial members with a combined global reach of hundreds of millions of people, including Andreessen Horowitz, the Grameen Foundation, GiveDirectly, Mercy Corps, and a variety of organizations around the globe, the Alliance will focus on a range of social impact use cases, including powering mobile and online work, enabling faster and affordable remittances, reducing the operational complexities of delivering humanitarian aid, facilitating payments, and enabling microlending. While each member’s contributions will be unique, their combined efforts will leverage the benefits of blockchain technology to make it easier to move digital currencies across borders and create accessible financial tools for the 5.6 billion smartphones around the world.

In celebration of the launch and in demonstration of its commitment to financial inclusion, the Alliance will be awarding small bounties, #ProsperityGifts, to qualified applicants anywhere in the world, who share great ideas to positively impact their local communities. With these efforts, the Alliance will deepen its commitment to make a meaningful impact through prosperity.

“We believe the only way to solve some of the world’s toughest problems is by bringing together diverse and mission-aligned organizations to create a future where everyone can share prosperity,” said Rene Reinsberg, founder of Celo. “The Alliance will use blockchain technology to reimagine the future of money and create inclusive financial tools. From sending money home across borders to donating to a humanitarian organization, we want to make sure that money arrives in the right hands — not in the pockets of a middleman.”

Celo is an open blockchain platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. It can be leveraged to build an ecosystem of powerful mobile applications, ranging from easier cash transfer programs to peer-to-peer lending, international remittances to digital assets and wallets. Celo’s digital currency — the Celo Dollar stablecoin — provides people all over the world with a stable, secure, inexpensive and easy way to move money and engage in financial activities that were previously inaccessible to them.

“Grameen Foundation envisions a world with universal access to financial services,” said Gigi Gatti, Director of Technology for Development at Grameen Foundation. “We are committed to unlock financial inclusion barriers to reduce poverty and open economic opportunities for everyone. The Alliance for Prosperity gives us a fresh chance to build, interoperate, secure new financial services applications — it’s about time to cut the cost of bringing financial services to those who need it most.”

The Alliance is continually growing and comprises members across a range of industries, including blockchain and cryptocurrency, finance, venture capital, international remittances, payments, charity and philanthropy, telecommunications and education. The following organizations currently make up the Alliance: Abra, Alice, AlphaWallet, Anchorage, Appen, Ayannah, A16Z, B12, BC4NB (Blockchain for the Next Billion), BeamAndGo, Bidali, Bison Trails, Blockchain Academy Mexico, Blockchain.com, Blockchain for Humanity (b4h), Blockchain for Social Impact (BSIC), Blockdaemon, Carbon, cLabs, CloudWalk Inc, Cobru, Coinbase, Coinplug, Cryptio, Cryptobuyer, CryptoSavannah, eSolidar, Fintech4Good, Flexa, Gitcoin, GiveDirectly, Grameen Foundation, GSMA, KeshoLabs, Laboratoria, Ledn, Maple, Mercy Corps, Metadium, Moon, MoonPay, Pipol, Pngme, Polychain, Project Wren, SaldoMX, Semicolon Africa, The Giving Block, Utrust, Upright, Yellow Card, and 88i.

To learn more, please visit celo.org/alliance.

###

About Celo

Celo is an open blockchain platform that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone. Its open source technology can be leveraged to build an ecosystem of powerful mobile applications, ranging from easier cash transfer programs to peer-to-peer lending, international remittances to digital assets and wallets. These applications aim to solve real-world problems standing in the way of financial inclusion for the people who need it most. Celo’s digital currency — the Celo Dollar stablecoin — provides people all over the world with a stable, secure, cheap, and easy way to move digital currencies and engage in financial activities that were previously inaccessible to them. Celo aims to make digital currencies accessible and easy to use for everyone, regardless of their technical know-how. Visit celo.org for more information.

About the Alliance for Prosperity

The Alliance for Prosperity is an ecosystem of mission-aligned organizations including nonprofits, merchants, and payment processors fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology. In support of mobile-first open blockchain platform Celo, the Alliance provides infrastructure and education to enable more people to use digital currencies — specifically, the Celo Dollar stablecoin — in the geographies that need it most. Each member’s combined contributions make it easier to move digital currencies around the world and create accessible financial tools on the Celo platform, with diverse use cases including remittances, humanitarian aid, payments, and microlending. Visit celo.com/alliance for more information.