SocialHive (S-Hive)

We are committed to stop the non participation in social security programs and to break the cycle of poverty that exists among the informal sector workers in Nigeria and West Africa.

S-Hive is proposing an open public funded and monitored non cryptocurrency blockchain secured platform which provides an electronic savings wallet which gives our clients access to medicare, pension and finance while making the individuals visible to the government for federal assistance even across borders.

If scaled regionally; finance, pension and good health will be available to all in the informal sector mostly women in west Africa. Like bees working together towards a common goal in a hive, "social hive" has both rich and poor working together for a common goal “eradicating poverty”.

We are working to get at least 80% of Job creators and employees in the informal sector to sign up for social insurance.

This problem can be seen in Abia state with a high percentage of self employed individuals and entrepreneurs who are employing different levels of skilled and unskilled workers and not paying taxes in a bid to avoid the law and or make more money, this results in underpayments and hence little or no savings from their employees. This problem is scaled through out the Eastern states of the country and beyond affecting more than 1million persons in the state and more than 10 million in the Eastern region of the nation.

Contributing factors to this problem related to our solution are

• The desire to remain informal by employers in the informal sector as a means to make more money and avoid the law.
• lack of availability of affordable insurance schemes for the informal workers.
• lack of trust in government operated programs as being politically unbiased, fair and equitable.
• lack of access to finance to scale up into formal businesses.
• Low literacy levels: not understanding the need for social security.

The target population that S-Hive is working to directly and meaningfully improve consist of the medium and poor members of the the informal sector. This consist mostly women who are either self employed or at the tail of all sort of menial jobs in the informal sector having plenty dependents from either the immediate or extended family.

S-Hive have and is studying surveys that have been conducted by various organization to improve the life of informal sector workers and studying articles on taxation systems in west Africa.

Understanding that the informal sector is also made up of varying factors and degrees we are collecting data on family structures as this can greatly help to bring both the rich and poor members of the informal sector to unity of goal "taking care of the aged and unemployed in the society".

If embraced the live expectancy of the old and unemployed in the society will be greatly increased as they are provided medical care and thus will ease the burden in immediate family members who will be able to make savings and access finance to start or scale their business to formality. This is a stepping stone out of poverty.

The problem we are solving (getting businesses in the informal sector to contribute to social insurance programs) and the solution we are proffering (an open public monitored and funded non cryptocurrency blockchain protected electronic savings wallet) for the target group (business owners, self employed entrepreneurs and employees in the informal sector) is well aligned with the objective of the Mission Billion Challenge West Africa Prize in that it is providing social insurance to millions in west Africa, targeting those in the informal sector and using a tech-based solution which is available across borders and is scalable and human eccentric.

S-Hive is a social insurance company that has adopted a simple but different approach to get informal sector workers and businesses to buy insurance, while conventional insurance are for businesses or individuals who can afford to pay for the risk premiums which is accrue-able at the occurrence of the risk insured, as can be seen in most local insurance companies such as AIICO(American International Insurance company), Leadway Assurance company and Custodian and Alliead insurance. 

S-Hive provides insurance simply on the basis of savings made, whether erratic or steady, but favoring steady savings, by giving incentives that encourage steady savings. We offer our clients an easy to use electronic savings wallet which is secured by blockchain technology without exposing their fund to crypto-currency, as such funding and monitoring(without exposing the financial details of our clients) is available to any one who chooses to do so from anywhere in the world. Upon signing up the individuals or businesses who become our client are eligible to receive 5% and 7% cumulative interest rate on deposits made and loans collected respectively, and payment of pension and medical care in their old and unemployment state and age. We also offer training, finance and support to start or scale up into becoming a registered formal business as grants. Hence we don’t only insure businesses and individuals but makes sure they succeed in becoming formal businesses and creating formal employments with formal benefits and paying taxes and dues to the government.

Blockchain technology is widely used in crypto-currency platforms such as that on the Bitcoin platform.

At its most basic level, blockchain is literally just a chain of blocks,
but not in the traditional sense of those words. When we say the words “block” and “chain” in this context, we are actually talking about digital information (the “block”) stored in a public database (the “chain”).

When a block stores new data it is added to the blockchain. Blockchain, as its name suggests, consists of multiple blocks strung together. In order for a block to be added to the blockchain, however, four things must happen:

1. A transaction must occur.
2. The transaction must be verified
3. The transaction must be stored in a block
4. The block must be given a unique identity code called a hash

When that new block is added to the blockchain, it becomes publicly
available for anyone to view—even you. If you take a look at Bitcoin’s blockchain, you will see that you have access to transaction data, along with information about when (“Time”), where (“Height”), and by who (“Relayed By”) the block was added to the blockchain.

The reason we choose to use this is to instill trust and transparency on the platform as we yearn to be accountable to the public we serve, hence blockchain makes it impossible for monitoring participants and any of our staff to edit transaction details on the platform.

S-Hive is proposing an effective shifting solution to end informal driven economy.

All businesses in the informal sector has need to grow and this is dependent on finance which is why S-Hive is proposing an insurance platform that gives insurance cover(pension and medical care) to our clients while providing finance in the forms of grants and termed loans from the portfolio generated to existing and new businesses to become formal there by creating a shift from informal to the formal sector, creating more jobs in the formal sector with formal sector benefits. 

This will lead to a shift from an informal driven economy to a formal economy in the long run and will have the advantage of generating taxes and dues needed by the nation to effectively run social security programs which will enhance standards of living and address poverty. This will also create a ready market for the always graduating bulk of students from the tertiary institutions in the nation who have a need to be in formal employments. This has once been demonstrated to be true by an approach which was utilized by the ministry of finance in the nation between the years 2011-2015 through a program called YouWin (youth enterprise with innovation), which failed due to political reasons.

The math: Assuming 10% of the 80million(Nigerians) presently in the informal sector buys S-Hive insurance in the first year by making either erratic or regular daily savings of $0.14 ($50.7/year) the minimum amount required to access finance(grants and loans) for accounts 2years old and above and medical care and pensions, for accounts 10 years old and above. This will result to $912,600,000 as available finance and loans in our portfolio in the first year. Should we choose to use this as grants($27,000/business) to finance viable existing informal businesses to scale up into formal businesses by educating, training and providing business support. This will result to 33,800 formal businesses created in a year and possibly above 202,800 formal jobs.

Note: This math illustrates the shifting solution proposed both does not portray all the facets of solution.

Think of us as financial banks in the various public sectors. With the sole purpose of providing social insurance(pension and medical health) to our clients while remitting necessary taxes accrued from their savings to the central Bank(any organization or body that regulates the social insurance trust fund in the country in which we are operating). Which can also help us to meet demand in the face of natural disasters.

Using blockchain technology makes for easy mornitoring from the local authorities as well as being cost effective in administrating.

S-Hive offers an electronic wallet which can be funded in the simple clicks

1. Synchronizing your bank account to the platform by adding debit card details
2. Add you Bank Verification number BVN
3. Fund your account from the bank added with just a clique.
4. Or type a 3 digit short network service code on your mobile device and select a menu from the drop down menu in your lingual Franca.

Incorporating us into delivery systems therefore requires that the user simple sign up to our platform.

In Nigeria the exist already a Bank Verification Number for everyone who operates a bank account, this can be used in the blockchain technology as well as the identifying factor to avoid an individual from operating multiple accounts. If such identifying system are available in other West African nations we incorporate it into the platform as well.

In situations of low connectivity environments and low literacy and numeral levels the plaffform is accessible with short service codes that offer a numbered interactive menu available in the mother tongue of the client. This is made available by local mobile network providers.

Our goal is to serve 3,000,000 person in our first year of operation and in the fifth year to add 20,000,000 people to our customer base.

Our impact goals include to get 40% of informal sector workers in Imo state to benefit from pension and medical care after retirement and 20% of informal sector business in same state to scale up to registered formal businesses creating 2000 new job opportunities in the formal sector of the economy by the end of 1 year.

We will be archiving this goal by advertising our program and its benefit on the media, word of mouth and through flyers educating. We will then educate train and finance 400 existing jobs in the state through an awareness and scale-up campaign. 

Barriers to accomplish our goals include financial constraints such as seed capital to build our digital online platform and incorporating the blockchain technology.

Also legal barriers from the national Economic and financial crime commission (EFCC) as we will need to prove that our company is not a fraud or Ponzi schemes  

To fund the business and get it started Henry Onyema who is the CEO is proposing a mix of:

Personal savings, traditional borrowings, loans, grants and federal assistance.

To raise the sum of $74,400 which will be used for capital expenditures and operating cost as follows

Building of web site--------12,000

Blockchain platform------- 50,000

Renting of an apartment--- 1000

Licensing and legal ------------1400

Coding of mobile application---5000

Adverts-------5000

we will register as B-Corp business.

2 co founders

My team consists of a mix of people, native Africans, some who come from poor families where parents have been informal workers and are still informal workers. We are made up of different professions and qualifications ranging from an entrepreneur, a certified accountant, a statistician and a female Web architect. We have different skills from managerial to accountability but sharing one common goal “Improving living standards and qualities to be beneficial for all without prejudice”. I having a dual country living experience, from Cameroon and Nigeria makes me bilingual, therefore giving me an advantage to communicate in both French and English which I see as an advantage to operate regionally in both English and French speaking nations in west Africa.

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We are a social insurance company who serves  individuals and businesses who have the need to protect themselves and their employees from the event of unemployment resulting from accidents at work or retirement and other natural disasters, we serve the niche market of businesses and individuals in the informal sector, we provide insurance in the form of medical care and pension to these individuals and employees in these businesses, we offer payday loans and long term loans with an interest rate second only to that of the Central Bank of the nation (7%), we also offer education, training and financial support to our clients in the form grants to scale up or start a new formal business. Available to our clients through and electronic wallet that is accessible from anywhere in the world.

This we do at a minimum cost of about $51 per annum. We partner with financial institutions and mobile network providers to make our services available even to those in areas of low internet connectivity connectivity.

The total market size in Nigeria being about 80,000,0000 individuals and 5,000,000 businesses, with an addressable market of about 8,000,000 individuals and 50,000 businesses totaling about $912,600,000 in revenue per year.

With a startup cost of $74,400 and proposing an automated based administration platform makes for effective and low administrative cost hence we expect to break even in two years.

To fund the business we will raise seed capital through personal savings, traditional borrowing, grants and equity financing, federal assistance. When operating properly we will generate money by charging a 0.2% on withdrawals and deposits made. We will also be charging a 7% interest on loans collected per annum, we remit 5% of these to our clients savings and retain the extra 2% of it from which we will pay withholding taxes to the government and offset other expenditures.

Upon educating, training and empowering an entrepreneur to either expand an existing business or start a formal business and create more jobs, through grants, the entrepreneurs and their employees are mandated to be clients of S-Hive for life. In such a way we create a pool of non ending clients, which assures the unending of our social insurance business.

Personal savings $2000

To fund the business and get it started Henry Onyema who is the CEO is proposing a mix of:

Personal savings, equity, traditional borrowings, loans, grants and federal assistance.

To raise the sum of $74,400 which will be used for capital expenditures and operating cost as follows

Building of web site--------12,000

Blockchain platform------- 50,000

Renting of an apartment--- 1000

Licensing and legal ------------1400

Coding of mobile application---5000

Adverts-------5000

Our expenses or 2020 is the amount needed to kickstart our venture and it’s about $74,400 in total.

Building of web site--------12,000

Blockchain platform------- 50,000

Renting of an apartment--- 1000

Licensing and legal ------------1400

Coding of mobile application---5000

Adverts-------5000

And 

Winning the mission billion challenge will be a dream come true as it will not only give us the financial capability to lunch our venture but will also expose us to master piece tutoring and world class business experts who can help us scale to a bigger success and venture in our mission to better lives on a Regional scale.

It will also serve as a means to showcase our solution to broad number of investors who will possible buy the idea, and prove to be a bigger network of business relationships.

Having the world bank advocate for our solution to be integrated into national social insurance programs will also mean breaking political barriers across borders.

It will also help to prove that this is no Ponzi scheme

We expect our partners to be able to provide us with affordable services, and should share the goal of making lives better. An active partner who not only share in our success with us but also willing to promote us in everyday life as possible as his success is also our success vice versa.

We will be partnering with local mobile network providers in the nation namely MTN, Globacom and Airtel as a means to make payments into the platform through a simple 3 or 4 digit service code without visiting any physical collection center and to be able to make contributions from available airtime balance in a timely and regular pattern. We will also partner with financial institutions such as banks for ease of access to withdrawals.

We will also partner with the media for advertising

We will also partner with Google for blockchain technology that secures our platform and for advertising