Santi Siri, founder of Democracy Earth Foundation, has been working with technologies attempting to advance democracy for over a decade. He began in Argentina with an internet-based political party that was proposing candidates committed to using their power according to the peoples’ interests online. With help from a grant in 2015 from Y Combinator, he started Democracy Earth Foundation, a non-profit building open source & censorship-resistant democracies that can be deployed anywhere with an internet connection. In their research, and out of the need to register voters with unique identities, the Proof of Humanity protocol was born.

Proof of Humanity protocol uses facial registration (i.e. uploading a video/picture) to ensure unique user identity online, while protecting sensitive personal information. In this episode, Peth and Santi discuss the function and reasoning behind the Proof of Humanity protocol, and explore how this can be used as part of online democracy.

Some of the topics

Proof of Humanity using faces as public keys for unique human identification
Kleros justice protocol for settling disputes
Difference between Proof of Humanity and BrightID
Universal Basic Income sustainability
Democratic governance for DAOs

Santi began deep in the world of politics and gained some valuable insights regarding the efficacy of creating change within traditional systems. “In order to become successful in [traditional systems] you have to play under their rules, and it is very likely that you will end up being changed by them. With technology, we can build a new model that makes the old system obsolete.”

The episode concludes with an acknowledgement of the commitment required to make a real difference and quintessential advice for anyone working hard to bring their dreams to life: “Never give up”.

Resources

MetaView #13 - Proof of Humanity & Democracy on the Blockchain with Santiago Siri