The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has selected FLock.io as its new AI Strategic Partner. 

As a mentor, we will support pilot projects in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Blockchain Accelerator, and its global hackathons – the winners of which will join the next accelerator cohort.

FLock.io will mentor and provide technical support to five pilot projects, helping them to integrate federated learning and decentralised AI. These allow collaboration on sensitive data securely, without moving or exposing it.

Blockchain is leaping ahead in fostering international development, but there’s potential for far more. Our focus will be climate risk modelling, inclusive energy planning, social protection, and transparent supply chains – the next section details the practical use cases the hackathon focuses on.

We are excited to see the life-changing solutions the teams build to anticipate extreme weather; ensure underserved communities access reliable, affordable power; securely analyse financial and welfare data to improve the targeting and delivery of benefits without compromising privacy; and track goods from origin to consumer, reducing fraud and ensuring fair labour practices.

FLock.io is honoured that the UNDP believes our mission aligns with its purposes and principles. This partnership marks a major step in bringing our infrastructure into global real-world use, proving its value, and accelerating adoption.

It’s huge news, and one of several upcoming strategies to utilise the FLock.io tech stack to generate real-world AI-driven use cases, driving real revenue towards our growing ecosystem while making a tangible and benevolent impact. 

FLock.io and other UNDP partners are running the global SDG Blockchain Hackathon from August to September– a highly practical two-week virtual co-creation process to match pressing development challenges. Unlike traditional hackathons, participants will build implementation-ready roadmaps rooted in real-world development contexts.

Teams will explore several blockchain use cases, including:

Financial inclusion: Democratising microinsurance among vulnerable populations like small-scale farmers, and empowering women in Latin America to launch SMEs through alternative credit scoring and lending. 

Conservation & environmental finance: Eliminating double-counting in carbon markets for carbon credit transparency, and creating digital wallets linked to mountain gorillas to enable “interspecies money transfers” in Rwanda.

Healthcare & data privacy: Granting Mauritian patients real-time visibility and control over when their health data is accessed by social services, ensuring compliance with data protection laws.

Supply chain & traceability: Tracking fisheries management systems to provide transparent fish stock data and catch-to-consumer traceability to support sustainable practices.

Financial services innovation: Serving financially excluded remote rural areas through mobile banking agents; enabling smart contracts to automatically trigger payments to farmers upon delivery confirmation in Burundi; and supporting informal workers with transparent micro-lending and skills verification systems in Botswana.

Academia: Blockchain secures academic records in conflict zones; AI enables fair, cumulative assessment beyond final exams.

The hackathon is split into two phases. Phase 1 is a two-week virtual co-creation process matching real development challenges with solution teams. In Phase 2, the top teams join the upcoming accelerator cohort for a four-month build of implementation-ready pilots.

Run by UNDP’s Alternative Finance Lab, the SDG Blockchain Accelerator launched Cohort 1 to back blockchain solutions in climate finance, inclusive energy, social protection, and supply chain transparency. It has a focus on pilots that can be deployed and scaled.

Winners will advance to Cohort 2 in September. Over four months, they’ll refine and scale their solutions with tailored mentorship, technical expertise, and direct access to governments and development organisations.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Blockchain Accelerator is a global initiative launched by the UNDP, in partnership with the Blockchain for Good Alliance (BGA) and EMURGO Labs, to leverage blockchain for social impact and advance the UN\s SDGs.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the United Nations’ lead agency on international development. 

It operates in approximately 170 countries and territories, working to eradicate poverty and inequalities, protect the planet, and build resilient nations. UNDP focuses on helping countries develop strong policies, skills, partnerships, and institutions to achieve sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

FLock’s ecosystem consists of three key components: AI Arena, a platform for competitive model training; FL Alliance, a privacy-focused collaboration framework that enhances models while preserving data sovereignty; and Moonbase, our new rewards layer.

FLock is part of the mission to dismantle the power concentration of AI held by a handful of centralised corporations, promoting more equitable, transparent and composable development.

Find out more about FLock.io by reading our docs. For future updates, follow FLock.io on Twitter.