Two decades ago, if you lived in London and received an HIV diagnosis, you were sent home with a prescription. But if you lived in Lusaka, you were sent home to die because treatments were unavailable. We’ve made huge progress in the global AIDS fight, but COVID-19 is now threatening our hard-fought global health progress.
How do we support urgent and equitable access to COVID-19 relief and get life-saving tools into the hands of our brave frontline health workers? The answer may come from an unsuspecting place: non-fungible tokens.
Last month, (RED), the pandemic fighting organization co-founded by Bono and Bobby Shriver and Partisia Blockchain, an internet privacy infrastructure which works to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, joined forces to help raise money for COVID-19 relief in response to the ongoing and devastating impact of the virus in the world’s poorest countries.
The two organizations commissioned some of the hottest artists in the NFT space, including Adamtastic, ArinaBB, Saif Chilmiran, David Filer, Jakub Malec, MrSeaks for a special one-week-only NFT drop that raised funds to fight COVID-19 in Africa where less than 20 percent of people are fully vaccinated. 100% of proceeds of every first sale went to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, two of the most effective and efficient global health organizations on the planet who are working to bring this pandemic, and others like AIDS, to an end.
(RED)
Recognizing the important role that utility often plays in selling NFTs, Partisia Blockchain Foundation granted early access to the Partisia Blockchain public launch on May 31st, as well as access to future UN Sustainable Development goal projects which are currently under development, such as the “Healthies” project; A counterfeit medicine detection platform which runs on the Partisia Blockchain and aims to eradicate the $200 billion dollar per year counterfeit medicine trade in Africa.
After months of planning, the minting finally took place on May 23rd and the results were remarkable. In just the first minute alone, 2,000 NFTs were sold. In total, the drop helped raise over $330,000, and thanks to the generous matching funds made available by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the impact was doubled to $660,000 raised in just one week.
(RED) has long been at the center of pop culture and the cultural zeitgeist, but the NFT and crypto universe was entirely new to the organization. “Learning about NFTs was like learning a new language,” said Sheila Roche, Brand and Creative Consultant at (RED). “(RED) has a history of partnering with some of the world’s most iconic brands from Apple to Stellantis to Therabody to tap into the hottest trends, and we couldn’t miss an opportunity to turn tokens into therapeutics, tests and vaccines for those most in need.”
On the heels of their first successful NFT drop, (RED) is currently working to expand its partnerships and explore opportunities for future collaborations in the digital art space – all in the name of raising money to support life-saving global health programs.
If the COVID-19 and AIDS pandemics have taught us anything, it’s that none of us will be safe until all of us are safe. (RED) is committed to that important principle and will stop at nothing until it ends the injustice of global health emergencies, one test, vaccine – and NFT – at a time.
This is a content marketing post from a Forbes EQ participant. Forbes brand contributors’ opinions are their own.
