UNICEF launches fund for start-ups; NEObank uses security tokens

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed the launch of a fund to back startups structure real-world services with emerging innovation to safeguard kids on the web.

According to an main announcement, the UNICEF Venture Fund is lookingfor companies to experiment with synthetic intelligence (AI) and blockchain in its program nations. The services supplied by the business oughtto have the “potential to develop extreme modification for kids.”

The fund is especially worried with useful options that can aid young people area falseinformation while structure media literacy. Successful companies will get as much as UnitedStates$100,000 in equity-free financing with UNICEF targeting early-stage start-ups with a working model.

Firms focusing on open-source licensing and practice are more mostlikely to get financing from UNICEF than closed-ended business. 

Top on the stack for UNICEF is the desire to utilize AI and Web3 options to battle falseinformation, with the declaration checkingout capacity applications. UNICEF is ready to fund platform-agnostic, interactive videogames that motivate fact-checking practices and unique watermarking options.

The 2nd unbiased of the fund is to assistance companies lookingat big numbers of information for building safe AI designs. Firms structure information collection and management systems are more mostlikely to get moneying, while others exploring with services to suppress cognitive predisposition in the procedure will be chosen.

Firms with options that foster digital trust will mostlikely come under the crosshairs of UNICEF, especially those structure around decentralized procedures for ownership and licensing. AI-based options tracking online threats and DLT-backed Know Your Customer (KYC) tools will mostlikely get financing.

“We are actively lookingfor business that push the borders with frontier innovations in ingenious and scalable methods with worldwide significance,” UNICEF stated. 

UNICEF work with emerging innovation

In current years, UNICEF has had a long and storied history with emerging innovations, leaning on blockchain and digital properties to help distressed kids.

Aware of the prospective for seismic modification, the UN company hasactually invested over $400,000 in establishing nations to trigger mainstream adoption of blockchain and Web3 innovations. The veryfirst cohort of the fund saw companies from Argentina, Sri Lanka, and Nepal get a capital injection focusing on decentralized services. 

In early 2024, UNICEF struck a offer with Blockchain For Impact (BFI) to improve public health for kids in India, splurging over $2 million on the effort.

NEObank starts offering security tokens to customers

As security tokens gain momentum, SBI Sumishin Net Bank (NEObank) has signedupwith the pattern with an deal of security tokens to its customers, which professionals are calling a disruptive play in the environment.

According to a report, NEObank will deal security tokens from Japanese-based international company Mitsui & Co Digital Asset Management to its almost 8 million consumers. The brand-new plan will see NEObank messaround in security tokens for the veryfirst time however will lean on Mitsui (NASDAQ: SMFNF) for issuance.

Security tokens are digital representations of possession rights tape-recorded on the blockchain, operating as financialinvestment agreements and subject to securities guidelines.

Mitsui entered the market with a “direct-to-consumer” security token service in 2023, lookingfor to remove the dependence on brokers in the worth chain. Dubbed Alterna, the service is deciding for introducers rather than brokers in a worthy effort to reach customers, interrupting standard procedures in the financial system.

Under the brand-new plan, NEObank will run as introducers, however information of the operation stay sparse. While NEObank will deal the security tokens a