The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has joined the non-fungible token (NFT) mania by launching an Ethereum-based NFT collection. The organization announced this news on December 10, noting that this launch marks its 75th anniversary. UNICEF’s NFT collection is dubbed Patchwork Kingdoms and is set to drop in January 2022.
Reportedly, the collection comprises 1,000 pieces from digital artist and data scientist Nadieh Bremer. Bremer co-created this collection in partnership with Snowcrash Labs, an NFT marketplace, the Ethereum Foundation, and Metagood, among other companies.
The UN agency seeks to use the profits from its NFT sale to fund its projects, including the Giga Initiative. Launched in 2019, the Giga Initiative is a joint project between UNICEF and the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The project aims to connect every school to the internet, allowing children across the globe to take advantage of web-based information and opportunities. To highlight the importance of the Giga Initiative, Bremer created each NFT in the collection using data that the initiative obtained from over 282,000 in 21 countries. Building an inclusive kingdom.
Building an inclusive kingdom
Explaining how Bremer used data from the Giga Initiative to create the NFTs, UNICEF said each Patchwork Kingdom NFT has two worlds. The world above represents connected schools, and its reflection symbolizes unconnected schools. Bremer used a pale shade on the reflected world to show the lack of internet connectivity.
Through this concept, the NFTs show how many children are still in need of life-changing connectivity.
Detailing how she came up with this idea, Bremer said she drew inspiration from the work of Mary Blair, the creator of It’s a Small World. She then used geometric shapes like squares, triangles, and circles to build sets and cities. The final visuals depict each school as a tiny square that interlocks with another to form kingdoms.
While Patchwork Kingdom might seem like a cash grab for UNICEF, it is worth noting that the agency has been heavily involved with the blockchain for years, dating back before the launch of CryptoFund in 2019. CryptoFund allows the entity to receive, hold, and distribute crypto.
The platform has attracted donations from leading players in the crypto space, including Huobi Charity Limited, a non-profit linked to Huobi Global. The organization contributed $1 million to UNICEF in Bitcoin (BTC) and fiat. On top of this, Huobi Charity Limited donated 7 BTC to CryptoFund.
Apart from CryptoFund, the UNICEF Innovation Fund has been injecting funds into the blockchain for years by funding early-stage open-source web3 projects that aim to support children across the globe.
