MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

haka, a justice cry

One-line solution summary:

haka is blockchain-as-a-service for impacted communities

Pitch your solution.

Inability to pay bail and court fees affects millions of worldwide.

Most are presumed to be guilty before having a fair shot at proving their innocence.

Low-income litigants and People of Color are often forced to plead guilty.

Staying in prison is not an option for them - they have children to take care of, mouths to feed, and households to run.

Even family and friends give up their homes, lands, and property to pay these mounting court obligations.

haka helps low-income litigants going through law enforcement and court with finances, services, and dreams.

People lie at the heart of haka.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

haka is legal access generation for low-income litigants.

The legal finance canvas is painted with lives of low-income, under-privileged, and marginalized people. These litigants are typically POCs (people of color), male, low-income, young.

The presumption of “guilt before innocence” has put a multitude of people behind bars before trial.

Facing harsh realities of court inefficiencies; court bonds and fees, shoddy services, and a slew of other institutional shortcomings, haka creates a bridge between such litigants and justice. Justice is more than the substantive and procedural notions of law.

Unshackling the litigant from the vicious cycle of poverty, and providing them with access to justice, haka will empower marginalized litigants with a blockchain platform to bring access to justice.

Uplifting them through community-based content and messaging, haka members will trace the person’s progress throughout their journey.

Openness and transparency is what blockchain brings to haka.

What is your solution?

haka’s approach is person-facing and people-serving. People lie at the core of haka’s solution.

haka’s blockchain tracing method provides the litigant with both, funding and community reinforcement, in getting access to justice.

Our safe and secure platform allows for the public, corporate entities, and individual donors to send money to the person making rounds of the courts. This peer-to-peer and business-to-peer (P-P-B) platform enables those in need to showcase their life, their positive attributes, as well as their ongoing achievements.

Focusing on existing connections, haka’s platform allows litigants to humanize their journey to court.

It empowers and enables litigants to transform themselves into full-functioning, law-abiding persons.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Criminal Justice has low-income, under-privileged, and marginalized people. POCs (people of color), low-income, young. Systemic racism, sexism, and discrimination are steep. Vicious cycle of poverty, substance abuse and mental illness constrict these litigants even further. In anticipation of trial, tricky questions and answers are used to “get” the person and “win” the case. Even for a minor mistake such as a no-show to court, litigants are inflicted with severe penalties, such as imprisonment, with guilt yet to be proven. Even if later acquitted, rehiring is tough due to lingering criminal records negating the person’s true talents and abilities.

Lack of transportation, clothing, child care services and unavailability of phones. Missing work with resulting wage loss are borne by family and friends. This occurs from bond hearing through trial, and even post-trial.

Infamous money bonds or cash bonds are steeply on the decline; either replaced with No Bail, or with I- bonds, release of prisoners on their recognizance. Litigants’ family and friends are scrambling for money to bail the person out.

A mindset shift is necessary. Low-income litigants will be on haka’s platform to overcome institutional hurdles; a financial bridge between low-income litigants and effective access to justice.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Promote gender-inclusive and gender-responsive education for everyone, including gender non-binary and transgender learners

Explain how the problem, your solution, and your solution’s target population relate to the Challenge and your selected dimension.

Before trial, haka, on blockchain technology, provides finances to transmit person’s bail fund and creates haka citizen profiles.

On arrest, the haka Citizen notifies her FFn (family and friends network), which connects to the trust-based haka platform.

haka platform verifies haka citizen's identity. haka platform verifies the haka Citizen’s FFn, as co-signors or guarantors.

haka platform creates smart legal contracts between the litigant + FFn and the contributors.

haka provides haka citizens with cryptographically-secured wallet at tailored interest rate payments starting with 0%. FFns pays haka back in case-based installments.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Yuma, AZ, USA

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model

Who is the primary delegate for your solution?

CEO and Founder, Reshma Kamath