Blockchain for Justice: Using the Blockchain to help refugees

ATTENTION: THIS MEETUP STARTS EARLIER THAN OUR REGULAR PROGRAM!

Blockchain technology offers a lot of possibilities and opportunities, but a lot of the applications being developed seems very arcane and only useful to a very limited group of people.

In this meetup, we are going to take a close view at a very specific use case for blockchain technology: reuniting refugeee children with their parents who already are living in EU member states.

An estimated 3.500 unaccompanied minors are waiting in Greece to get reunited with their family in EU member states. According to EU legislation these children have the right to reunification. Unfortunately the process to actually get the children to their parents is not working well and sometimes takes up to 2 years. We want to speed this process up, and found a solution to do so.

After 1,5 years of researching the current process, talking to the different stakeholders and understanding where the bottlenecks are, we believe that with the smart use of Blockchain technology children can be reunited with their families in max. 3 months.

With an app based on blockchain technology, the process will be more efficient, resistant to tampering and can have built in performance indicators. By leveraging these specific characteristics of blockchain technology, we can revolutionise the way we handle complex procedures into safe and efficient processes.

Program

15:00 Blockchain essentials -- what is this technology, and how can it be a solution to the problem of child reunification?

15:30 Exploring the journey of the unaccompanied minor: an interactive search through the eyes of different stakeholders provides technical experts with the specific “problems” their technology can solve.

16:30 Bringing it together: let’s discuss how we can use our combined expertise to brainstorm an effective technical solution.

16:50 Innovating Justice! HiiL (https://innovatingjustice.com) challenges you to improve access to justice for all.

17:00 Drinks!

Speakers:

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Arend Jan van den Beld is the co-founder of Kids Reunited (https://kidsreunited.org/) and end-responsible for the Processes, Coordination and IT. He is specialised in turning thoughts into concepts, plans and implementation.

Arend has gained his experience as CEO of VJM (https://vjmovement.com/), a network organization of 500 video journalists and cartoonists active in more than 100 countries. Earlier he was a global manager at Philips International in the field of information management. Under his guidance Philips became one of the world’s front-runners in the development and the global use of online knowledge management platforms.

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Sophie Lagarrigue (Laga) is coordinating the process on behalf of Kids Reunited. She is responsible for research on the field, public relations and contact with local organisations and NGOs. She studied Liberal Arts and Sciences at Amsterdam University College, and specialized in International Relations and Human Rights. She worked as a volunteer for The One Campaign (https://www.one.org/) for two years and started a social carpet factory in Nepal last year.

Sophie is currently in Greece on location and will share her experiences there with us during the meetup.

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Flip Schuller is specialized in International Law and legal procedures in the area of reunification of minors. He and his law firm Prakken D’Oliveira can tap into large international networks of lawyers who have the same expertise, but work in other countries. Together they can approach each individual case from side of the receiving country and the side of the country that the minors are based in while separated from their parents.
Schuller has a broad network of contacts in the political arena, both in the Netherlands and in other EU countries.

Flip will discuss the use case from his legal experitise.

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Germa Lourens is our contact person at NIDOS (https://www.nidos.nl/), the Dutch organisation for protection of unaccompanied minor refugees. She helps Kids Reunited in numerous ways. She works as a refugee child protector and social worker at NIDOS and is involved in Dublin reunifications. She studied Social Work at the Hanzehogeschool in Groningen.

Gemma will offer her perspective of the issue from an NGO standpoint.

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Blockchain Workspace (http://www.blockchainworkspace.com/) wants to provide better and more practical education about blockchain technology. We teach with a pragmatic view and have a healthy sense of realism about the abilities of blockchain technology now and in the future. Blockchain Workspace offers training programs for professionals who want to have in-depth, but directly practical value.

Blockchain Workspace was founded by Henk van Cann (https://medium.com/@hvancann) and Bas Wisselink. (https://baswisselink.com/)

A Lab Blockchain Lab (http://a-lab.nl/blockchain-1) is an initiative by A Lab and Blockchain Workspace. The Blockchain Lab offers an affordable, inspiring and collaborative workspace for blockchain entrepeneurs.

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HiiL is one of the co-organisers of this event. The HiiL Justice Accelerator (https://innovatingjustice.com) finds and supports the world's best justice entrepreneurs in order to create access to justice for all. "