**Akashic: Preserving the Voices of the Displaced**
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**Introduction**
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International refugees number 35 million, alongside 110 million+ forcibly displaced peoples who have not crossed an international border. By some accounts, these numbers will increase by tenfold before 2050. Refugees often lack access to basic financial services, access to a basic income, access to identity verification _(which is a crime in many countries)_, and safe storage and transport of valuables. Current humanitarian aid infrastructure is unable to meet the growing demand and most often doesn't address the reintegration of displaced people into our economies. There is therefore an urgent need to allocate resources to innovative solutions. The global refugee crisis requires innovative solutions to these persistent challenges.

Crypto is seeking tangible real world use cases that are unequivocally beneficial to society aka crypto has a narrative problem. **The refugee use case gives opportunities for adoption of multiple platforms along the decentralized web stack**, including public blockchains, self-custodied wallets, self-sovereign identity, p2p cross-border payments & remittances, inflation-resistant savings accounts, micro-work platforms, creator/publishing platforms, decentralized finance, key management & account abstraction, learn-to-earn, SBT’s, decentralized KYC/AML and on-chain analysis.

The RefugeeNet, of which Akashic is the first product, is an effort spinning out of Funding the Commons. The Funding the Commons team has a proven track record of closing sponsorship funding, grant funding, and public goods funding from leading blockchain protocols including Protocol Labs, NEAR, Ethereum Foundation, Optimism Foundation, Celo Foundation, Filecoin Foundation, Golem Foundation (Octant), Brave, Gitcoin, and Centrifuge.

Breakthrough use cases are often supported and propelled by compelling stories and narratives. The stories and experiences of the dispossessed, particularly refugees, are often lost, untold, or forgotten, creating a void in our collective memory and understanding of these crises. Akashic aims to address this issue by providing a digital sanctuary for the oppressed and dispossessed to share their stories and be remembered, while also providing those same individuals with a basic income for their contributions. In parallel, the Funding the Commons platform, a highly engaged community of interdisciplinary talent provides a network of influential thought-leaders to further amplify the use case through the dissemination of talks, high-quality content production and media amplification.

**Project Overview**
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Akashic is a groundbreaking initiative that seeks to create a digital archive to permanently store, preserve, and organize memories, stories, and cultural knowledge of refugees. By leveraging the power of decentralized storage solutions like IPFS and Filecoin, Akashic will ensure that these narratives remain accessible, immutable, and resistant to censorship. This project leverages IPFS infrastructure to become a public record for humanity by enshrining the stories of the most vulnerable cultures and populations on earth.

**Benefits**
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Akashic will provide numerous benefits to refugees, researchers, policymakers, and society as a whole:

1.  **Financial Inclusion & Basic Income**: Refugees can access basic financial services and earn a dignified basic income through crypto by creating media that is consumed by the global crypto community.
    
2.  **Empowerment**: Refugees will have a platform to share their experiences, ensuring their voices are heard and their stories are not forgotten.
    
3.  **Preservation**: The use of decentralized storage will ensure that these narratives are preserved for future generations, even in the face of political instability or censorship attempts.
    
4.  **Impact Measurement:** Videos and other peer-produced media documenting the on-the-ground impact of contributions from the global crypto community creates a positive feedback loop of contribution -> impact -> contribution.
    
5.  **Empathy and Understanding**: By presenting these narratives, Akashic fosters empathy and understanding, humanizing statistics and abstract concepts, informing more effective and compassionate responses to refugee crises. This social impact use case can be leveraged by blockchain foundations to present to governments around the world, demonstrating the positive capabilities of blockchain technology to make real-world impact.
    
6.  **Cultural Heritage**: Akashic will serve as a repository for the cultural heritage of displaced communities, helping to maintain their identity and connection to their roots.
    

**Functionality and Features**
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Akashic will offer a range of features to facilitate the collection, curation, and presentation of refugee stories:

1.  **Story Submission**: Contributors can submit stories anonymously or self-identified, along with geolocation data. The platform will accept a wide range of media formats, including audio, video, and written accounts.
    
2.  **Story Curation**: Submitted stories will undergo a two-step process of filtering and curation into thematic collections. Professional staff and reputation-based groups will ensure the selection of compelling, high-quality content.
    
3.  **Story Exhibition**: Curated collections will be transformed into immersive exhibitions, with each story represented as an on-chain NFT or hypercert. Patrons can explore these exhibitions in 3D gallery spaces and contribute to the works by purchasing a portion of the hypercert.
    
4.  **Partnerships**: Akashic will collaborate with organizations including the Internet Archive for long-term preservation, MonaVerse for creating virtual exhibition spaces, Artizen Fund for solicitation, distribution, and tokenization of exhibited works, and the Filecoin Foundation for decentralized storage.
    

**Technology**
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Akashic will be built on a robust technical infrastructure:

1.  **IPFS and Filecoin**: Decentralized storage solutions will ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of the archived content.
    
2.  **User-friendly Interface**: A mobile-optimized web interface will allow easy access for contributors, curators, and patrons.
    
3.  **EVM Integration**: NFTs and hypercerts will be used to represent and track the creation and financial support of exhibited works, while digital wallets will enable self-identification and authentication.
    

**Execution Plan**
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The Akashic project will be executed in several phases:

1.  **Development**: Building the technical infrastructure and user interfaces for story submission, curation, and exhibition.
    
2.  **Partnerships**: Establishing collaborations with key partners including Refunite, the Internet Archive, MonaVerse, Artizen Fund, and Filecoin Foundation.
    
3.  **Pilot Phase**: Launching a pilot program to gather initial stories and test the platform's functionality.
    
4.  **Expansion**: Scaling up the project based on feedback from the pilot phase, and conducting outreach to encourage more story submissions.
    

Akashic is a vital initiative that will ensure the stories of the world's most vulnerable individuals are heard, preserved, and celebrated. By leveraging the power of decentralized storage and blockchain technology, Akashic will create a lasting record of the experiences of refugees, fostering empathy, understanding, and action. With your support, we can make this vision a reality, and ensure that no story is ever truly lost.