UNICEF Launches NFTs to Help Connect Schools to Internet

To honor the UN agency’s 75th anniversary, the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has launched a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum.

The proceeds from the January 2022 NFT launch—an exhibition titled “Patchwork Kingdoms” by digital artist and data scientist Nadieh Bremer—will go toward UNICEF’s many projects, including the Giga effort to subsidize internet connection for children around the world, according to UNICEF.

The Giga Initiative, launched in 2019, is a global project led by UNICEF and the International Telecommunication Union that aims to connect every school in the world to the internet so that children can benefit from web-based information and possibilities.

The Patchwork Kingdom collection features 1,000 NFTs and was built in collaboration with NFT marketplace Snowcrash Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, Metagood, and others. According to UNICEF, each NFT is painted using data collected from over 282,000 classrooms in 21 countries to discreetly communicate Giga’s value.

Bremer’s art plays into that. Inspired by the work of “It’s a Small World” creator Mary Blair, Bremer says she started with the idea of using simple geometric shapes, squares, circles, and triangles to build sets and cities. “In the final visuals, each school has become a tiny square, interlocking with other schools to form Kingdoms, split between those connected and disconnected to the internet,” she said.