03 Apr New WhatsApp-integrated Blockchain Technology for Tracking Behavior Change and Measuring Social Good
Contact:
Alex Todd
alex@reliablyme.com | 647-402-1497
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New WhatsApp-integrated Blockchain Technology for Tracking Behavior Change and Measuring Social Good
Toronto, April 3, 2021 – ReliablyME, a technology platform that allows people to build reputations by demonstrating their authentic self and social worth through digital commitments and recognition, has launched WhatsApp-integrated blockchain technology for tracking behavior change and measuring social impact.
“Nearly 2B people or 36% of the world’s population lives in poverty – situational, generational, absolute (housing, food, education insecure), relative, urban and rural poverty,” said Alex Todd, founder and Chief Executive Officer of ReliablyME. “Poverty rates can decrease, and economic mobility factors can increase when public-private partnerships create, reward, and incentivize behavior change among those in need. And provide them with a transferrable character credential that can be used to advance their social position.”
ReliablyME facilitates this ecosystem:
Governments or community organizations validate a ReliablyME character credential as usable for education, healthcare, employment, housing, credit, and insurance.
Community services providers administer support programs and facilitate commitment setting among the people being served.
People being served make commitments based upon support program requirements and receive “nudges” through SMS or WhatsApp instant messaging as reminders to take and report actions.
ReliablyME technology facilitates the commitment setting and achievement, administers character credentials, and provides data back to service organizations.
“Creating a WhatsApp-integrated version of ReliablyME, on the blockchain, allows community organizations worldwide to enroll even more people in behavior modification and measurement programs,” said Todd. “It gives users more flexibility to use either SMS text messaging where local service is available or WhatsApp instant messaging for every smartphone user with Internet connectivity.”
A Reliability Journey
WhatsApp integration is the 4th version of ReliablyME. In March 2020, ReliablyME released the first version of the platform specifically for Goodwill OGL in London, Ontario to help staff develop transferrable soft skills needed for future employment and receive digital badges for communication, teamwork, leadership and confidence.
In June 2020, ReliablyME released its second version to create peer-to-peer accountability for COVID-19 safety. Participants completed an ongoing interactive question and answer regimen with reminders and recognition for taking proper action like handwashing, sanitizing, and mask-wearing. Participants received digital COVID-19 safety and self-care badges.
In December 2020, ReliablyME donated its platform to Regent Park’s Healing As One youth group, funded by the City of Toronto’s Youth-Led Community Crisis Response Fund, to commit and deliver 360 warm meals over six days to homeless people. The reliability and timeliness of preparing and delivering meals by volunteers and creators increased significantly over prior years. “Every single caterer met that requirement. They were ready by three, if not there, [then] two minutes late, like two or three minutes late. It wasn’t like nothing before we had, you know, projects and initiatives that sometimes they would deliver, you know, an hour, [or] an hour and a half late,” said Murwan Khogali Ali, Product Development Manager at Healing As One. “It’s awesome. And I’m really glad we had that effect because what that tells me is it affected behavior. And we think that one of the strongest things about reliability is it can help shape behavior. So I think that’s huge.” Ali adds, “We’re really glad that we were able to partner up with you to make this initiative more fun.”
In February 2021, ReliablyME announced the enterprise version of ReliablyME that automates all nudging processes required to prompt behavior change and allows organizations to issue their own branded badges to those that they serve – all while protecting the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information.
Today, the WhatsApp-integrated version of ReliablyME is readied for its debut at Catalyst 2030’s Catalysing Change Week, May 3 – 7, 2021 to engage and recognize a global community of systems social entrepreneurs attending the event.
Nudging and Behavior Change
“In the sciences, behavior is a standard measure for evaluating whether an intervention (like a social program) has had a positive or negative effect,” said Todd. “When measuring specific elements of behavior, you can identify areas where great progress has been made and those areas that need additional focus for improvement.”
According to BJ Fogg of Tiny Habits Academy, “For behavior change to happen, it needs to be specific and easy to do. It happens when three elements come together at the same time: motivation, ability, and nudge. When people need to do hard things, they need to be prompted or nudged when there is a wave of motivation and when program support is in place.” These include a wide variety of desirable human behaviors that are typically not compensated and can be nudged with pre-accepted regular micro-survey conversations that gather time-based insights data:
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- community-mobilization vaccination campaigns
- post COVID-19 safe return to the workplace or classroom
- youth soft skills development, such as reliability, accountability, and personal integrity – especially for teamwork
- employment readiness, workforce reskilling and development, and place-based learning
- volunteer development – especially mentorship and coaching
- good health and wellbeing, such as adopting and maintaining routines
- community inclusion and collaboration
“ReliablyME is well suited for advancing progress toward many United Nations Development Goals (SDG) by facilitating systems change, especially SDG 10 Reduce Inequality and SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals,” said Todd. “All progress toward the SDGs requires intentional changes in behavior at the ecosystem level starting with each individual and extending to the governing systems they depend upon.”
A study from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) says, “Nudging people to commit to an appointment they themselves scheduled was more than three times as effective as assigning them an appointment” finding that “on a cost-adjusted basis, the planning nudge increased vaccinations at a rate nearly 40 percent higher than the next most effective intervention” and concluding that “nudges can be effective yet cheap, generating high impact per dollar spent”.
Reliable Data that Matters
ReliablyME produces chronological data on a participant’s evolving areas of interest, their confidence in making commitments, and their track record of fulfilling them on time. Data is stored on an IBM Managed Blockchain network with privacy and confidentiality governed and controlled collectively by all members of the data commons via a mutually trusted “smart contract.”
Community organizations have access to the status of the commitments to help them track and improve progress, intervene as necessary, validate successes and report back to governments, investors, and other funders with anonymized behavior change data indicative of program outcomes and social impact.
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About ReliablyME
ReliablyME is a transferrable character credential to demonstrate authentic self and social worth, earned by people being served through programs provided by social and community organizations, governments, and educational systems. Once individuals make digital commitments to each other and service organizations, they receive nudges as reminders to act, support organizations access data and behavioral results to intervene, recognize and report success to funders.
For more information, visit http://ReliablyME.com. To bring ReliablyME to your organization or to receive a demo, please contact info@reliablyme.com.
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