In the latest development, Amsterdam-based WordProof finished first in the ‘Blockchains for social good’ competition hosted by the European Commission. As a result, the company won €1 million. With this contest, Europe aims to stimulate the use of blockchain technology to solve social problems.
Founded in 2019 by Sebastiaan van der Lans and Frank van Dalen as an angel investor and partner, the Dutch startup is on a mission to restore trust in the internet. According to the Global CIGI-Ipsos research, the confidence on the Internet is declining due to fraud, fake news, and privacy issues, among other things.
Sebastiaan van der Lans, the WordProof founder, said: “We are building a universal Timestamp Ecosystem, a global standard that gives consumers a method to verify the reliability of the content on the Internet.”
However, this doesn’t end here as the company also received an incentive grant from tech giant Block.one and a loan from Innovation Fund Noord-Holland as well.
“With the recognition and financial support from Europe, we can roll out the Timestamp Ecosystem at a higher pace and make WordProof grow even faster as a company. This will enable Europe to define the standard for a reliable Internet for consumers and organisations,” says Van der Lans.
Notably, WordProof’s Timestamp Ecosystem enables consumers and search engines to verify the source of the content. Furthermore, the company wants to work with major publishers and webshops across the globe to protect their content. At present, the timestamp-plugin is already available for WordPress, a Content Management System used by roughly a third of all websites on the internet. It’s worth mentioning that, in the Netherlands, DPG Media was the first to use the timestamp technology for its title ‘Indebuurt’ to protect its articles.
Other prize winners in five different social innovation areas
- Traceability & Fair Trade: PPP (by UK social enterprise Project Provenance Ltd)
- Financial Inclusion: GMeRitS (by Finnish university Aalto)
- Aid & Philanthropy: the UnBlocked Cash Project OXBBU (by Irish Oxfam and French startup Sempo)
- Decentralised Circular Economy: CKH2020 (by French cooperative Kleros)
- Energy: PROSUME (by Italian Prosume srl)
Main image credits: WordProof
This article is produced in collaboration with StartupAmsterdam and WordProof. Read more about our partnering opportunities.
