Turn on the news, watching an act of terror, as muslims we all have the same thought process. Please don't let it be a muslim. We all know the negative and false depiction of muslims in the media. It’s not muslims job to “condemn” any violent act carried by a coward that claims to be part of a specific religion. It’s your job, as global citizens to notice how media portrays muslims. When an act of terror happens and the person is a non Muslim, he isn’t classified as a terrorist. It’s like we wait for the backlash, it’s an endless cycle. This post is not to prove that muslims aren’t “terrorist”. This post is to educate and shift the narrative of how media is trying to paint the picture of muslims, while pushing the agenda and representation of muslims, through peace and light. Fashion is my way of self- expression- it’s universal, it shows we are all interconnected somehow, it creates dialogue. If I can communicate through that , I’m informing you and enlightening. We need to educate others the real side of what mainstream media doesn't want to portray. Every religion represents peace, once a person claims to be of a certain religion and carries out an act of violence, they are no longer a representation of that religion. Let us unite through peace, love & unity.
Block Chain /
Building a Better World, where Crypto and Real Economies are Bridged
by Valentin Preobrazhenskiy, founder of LAToken
A couple of years ago, universal recognition of blockchain technology opened up amazing opportunities for entrepreneurs around the globe to revolutionize almost every economic sector, from finance and real estate to healthcare and transport. LAToken contributes to the ongoing revolution by adding blockchain to antiquated processes still used for selling assets and investing money. We made hard assets tradable in crypto to bridge crypto and real economies, enabling small investors to get access to previously closed markets, like real estate and artworks, and significantly improving user experience of trading.
Room for improvement
For more than 7 years, I’ve been working for global investment companies and hedge funds. I couldn’t help but notice how old-fashioned the traditional capital markets are. They simply can’t effectively reallocate money in the economy from the players who are in a situation of over-liquidity to those who can use them to create additional value because of three main reasons.
First of all, transaction costs — commissions can be as high as 25–30% — result in tens of thousands of dollars losses every time anything big is bought or sold. Secondly, intransperancy of markets creates asymmetry of information, when investors don’t get the full data about the asset that the owners have. It leads to erosion of markets: low-quality assets become more profitable to sell than high-quality assets.
Finally, many markets are closed to retail buyers — for example, the entrance level for real estate and artworks markets stand at thousands of dollars. Even if you see an amazing investment opportunity, you wouldn’t be able to invest without a considerable starting capital.
All this slows the economic growth, reduces the productivity of companies and entire regions, and deprives many quality ideas of the opportunity to be implemented. The money just doesn’t het to be at the right time at the right place. The system shouldn’t look like this in the 21st century. There’s a huge room for improvement. And we know how to fill it in.
The Blockchain Revolution
To build something big and attractive, you have to have a vision of the way things could be done better. That’s something that the brilliant and still unidentified creator of bitcoin — Satoshi Nakamoto — definitely possessed, when he posted a White Paper, describing the groundbreaking technology behind the new cryptocurrency.
In simple words, it was a shared, trusted, public ledger that everyone could inspect, but no single user could control. It soon became clear that blockchain could transform the whole economy, working as a «trust machine», removing middlemen from any transactions, bringing disruptive cost reduction and unprecedented transparency to the traditional processes.
Bitcoin provided the first example of how the outdated payment process could be revolutionized by replacing banks and other financial institutions with a mathematical algorithm. The idea was so attractive, that the capitalization of bitcoin leaped to $70 billion in just 9 years, overtaking such giants as FedEx and PayPal.
The Better Crypto World
Bitcoin’s rapid take off didn’t go unnoticed, and after a few years the technology behind bitcoin finally got the appreciation it deserved, with everyone from governments and regulators to global corporations and startups looking for ways to use blockchain with their products and services.
Last year, in a vote of confidence for blockchain technology, the Republic of Georgia, in cooperation with blockchain industry pioneer the BitFury Group, decided to implement the technology for validating property-related government transactions. Since the launch of the project in February 2017, more than 100,000 documents have been registered the new way.
Global corporations have joined the race as well. In November 2015, the world’s biggest financial institutions formed the R3 consortium to research and develop blockchain database use in the financial industry. They already got positive results, proving that the technology can help facilitate easier interaction in banks’ back-end infrastructures when processing trades. And Barclays already carried out the world’s first blockchain trade transactioncutting a process that takes 7–10 days to less than 4 hours.
I could go on forever with these blockchain success stories. Looking back, we can say that, in many ways, the triumph of the technology was predetermined. If we are being honest, we have to admit that the current systems are too clumsy, too expensive, and too slow, as well as overregulated and opaque. Blockchain can change everything. Once the LAToken team came to that conclusion and realized that the whole economy is on the edge of a technological revolution, we quickly picked our slice of the growing crypto-economy pie.
LAToken is a Game Changing Platform
Just like Satoshi ten years ago, we have a vision of the world, where the new transparent, fast, decentralized crypto economy is finally bridged with the real assets.
The differences between LAT platform and traditional markets are striking. For example, if you were to invest in real estate right now, you’d have to get a large amount of money for the lump-sum mortgage, go through tedious paper works and lawyers, and you’ll also have to bear a massive burden should the real estate market fail. With LAToken, you can buy tokens — fractions of the hard assets instead of paying huge money upfront which is massive gamble.
We have already built the first multi-asset tokenization platform, where hard assets, ranging from Apple or Tesla shares to gold and real estate ETFs are already traded for cryptocurrency. New asset classes will be added soon to enable you to buy fractions of rare paintings, French castles or New York penthouses with just $100 and sell it with profit in a few years. Or you can get cash by selling your house by fractions to thousands of investors without borrowing money and paying interest.
This is the world we are building. We make the markets liquid, transparent and safe, and bring transaction costs to minimum (0,001–0,1%). This way we give the crypto holders an opportunity to diversify portfolio without converting to fiat. Owners of illiquid assets, such as real estate or works of art, can tokenize them and sell by fractions with a liquidity premium estimated at 10–40%. Fiat traders can prefer LAToken to NASDAQ due to lower transaction costs and 24/7 availability.
Thanks to the advantages of LAT Platform and the easy process of creating new tokens backed by real assets, assets worth $1.2 trillion can be tokenized and traded on the LAT Platform by 2025, while the total crypto market capitalization can reach $5tn, according to LAT Crypto Research. We believe crypto will dominate the global economy. And we work hard to bring crypto expansion to multi-trillion dollar markets closer to make them fit for the 21st century.
Just two days are left till the end of LAT Token Sale
(ends on October 10 at 6 pm GMT).
We are #1 among tokenization platform by funds raised with $18+ million raised from 12,000+ contributions.
Don’t miss the chance to join our community and get LAT with an 8% bonus(can expire at any moment, when a batch of 2,5M LAT is sold).
Global Goals World Cup /
What a night! The amazing women from Moving the Goalposts who had traveled all the way from Kilifi enden up victorious, brining the GGWCup trophy home with them!
Next Stop: GGWCup UAE Friday January 19th 2018
From the GGWCup team we just want to say THANK YOU! to all the amazing teams, volunteers and partners who made the Global Goals World Cup happen on September 19th. Right from the super flexible owners of the Brooklyn Expo Center. who had never thought they would host a soccer tournament at their venue. To the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN, and the New York City's Mayors office for International Affairs Who helped us put everything together and supported the creation of the SDG 5 Dream Team. UNDP who partners with us everywhere in the world together with Save the Children, who made sure that the winners from Nairobi -Moving the Goalposts could join us in New York. And our amazing production partners Packouz productions, who were invaluable in making the event run smoothly. And GAIN who served a delicious dinner for the players after the games.
We couldn't have done it without the support of UN Women, the Office of the Secretary General's Envoy on Youth, Dena Mekawi from Style and Resilience, GANNI, Muuto, Global Citizen, Shamballa Jewels, Joe and the Juice, Little sun, DJ MIcki, Ihan Haydar, and our great referees Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Victor Ochen. And the phenomenal crew of referees judges and volunteers.
There are tons of gorgeous pictures and video on their way. But for now we just wanted to highlight the winners
1. The overall Trophy winner: Moving The Goal Post
2. Action Point Winners: Sports Equality Enforcers
3. Mobilizing the Crowd winners: BIG FC
4. Creative style: Mamma's United
5. Next Generation winners: She is Worth More
6. Attitude Award: Stars & Strikers
7. Give Back winners: Global Goals NY FC
Congratulations to all the teams, and we hope to see you again next year for more Global Goals Action!
Next stop is Bangkok already on September 30th.
Indigenous Voice, Indigenous Rights - The Role of Community Media /
United Nations DPI
Women’s National Book Association
Style & Resilience
Have you heard about the UN Declaration of Rights for Indigenous People?
#WeAreIndigenous
Moderator, Suzanne Benally Executive Director of Cultural Survival, introduces the article 16 in the declaration, communications and awareness, as a significant part of cultural survival. Media can help bring about understanding and celebration of cultures.
Shaldon Ferris, Eldos FM in Johannesburg, South Africa, talks about the importance about community radio for it provides the people of the community with a voice. It plays as a common medium where your common voice can be heard. It not only provides entertainment, but it also a chance to celebrate people of indigenous cultures. Ferris points out how media never shows people that look like him and his community; there was no awareness. From Dutch to American entertainment, Shaldon learned about other cultures but never saw celebration nor awareness of his own. Ferris praises his sister for stepping up to the plate and creating a community radio station that focused on the issues in the community like having delayed ambulances in an emergency. Because of her and the radio, ambulances and emergency care are now able to come more quickly.
Avexnim Cojti is represents Indigenous Rights Radio, Cultural Survival in Guatemala. 60% of Guatemala is indigenous. The challenge in Guatemala is that there is monopoly of power from private sectors and businesses. In rural parts in the country, they do not speak Spanish, and education is very underdeveloped. For any entertainment, it is used to sell products from these businesses instead of bringing about news and awareness of indigenous culture let alone the outside world. Cojti also speaks about how people are embarrassed to be indigenous now. Radio stations like Cojti's promotes indigenous pride not only from its history but also for today. There have been many petitions and promises from the government and state to allow indigenous to have media and a voice; however, the power still stays with the private sectors and businesses. For cultural survival, Cotji recommends we teach language through the radio, promote forums and policy, and gain more awareness on indigenous issues.
Dev Kumar Sunuwar, Radio Kairan, Nepal, describes his country is a small nation between two big ones, China and India. 36% of the Nepal population is indigenous; however, very few are represented in politics and media. In 2014, the government has give 620 radio stations to community, but a very few are given to these Indigenous community and mainly to dominant groups. Without a voice, there is no influence nor awareness. Outside communities cannot learn about indigenous people if they don't have a voice. Indigenous people cannot be given appropriate treatment nor consideration in human rights and development if they're not given a voice.
Radio serves communities for empowerment, education, and other information. To gain more awareness, Cojti recommends we study and find out what indigenous cultures are around us and see how much it has affected ourselves and identity.
Check out a link to the UN Declaration of Human Rights for Indigenous People here.
Read MoreDena Shares a Dialogue with Cristina Gallach /
DPI NGO 2017 Kick- off Workshop and Orientation
United Nations Headquarters, New York, Conference Room 1
Women’s National Book Association
Few months back, Dena Mekawi had opportunity to serve as the moderator with Cristina Gallach, Under Secretary- General for Public Information and Communications. I shared a conversation with her about “Youth and Media: Breaking Barriers and Leveraging Opportunities.Ms. Gallach spoke about the importance of each one of our voices to stand for something. She mentioned how the United Nations has given youth many resources to spark change, and it’s our job to take control of the narrative. Dena was able to share my experiences with mainstream media, and the impact it has on youth. mentioned how we each have a voice, and through media we get to share the narrative and communicate, and inspire. The role of the United Nations DPI is to disseminate information to the public. With the use of social media, we each can use that to our advantage. Dena also explained how I was able to influence girls, globally through mentoring them via digital media. Ms. Gallach agreed that by staying engaged with the information that the United Nations has given us, we can learn from one another. When we collaborate, we enhance the ability to share experiences, and knowledge with one another. it’s important to stay transparent in this digital age, and communicate effectively.
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