A Netherland initiative uses this technology to give away without cash
Generosity jump on the technology bandwagon. How? Thanks to the Givt application, a Netherland initiative designed to enable organizations to receive donations online via mobile phone. A direct, easy and completely anonymous transactions that, according to their inventors, will make the lack of cash not become an excuse to bring the will.
This is a device that works with Accent Systems’ Bluetooth beacons. We have spoken with one of the managers of Givt, Maarten Vergouwe, to give us more details about the project.
Is Givt the solution for making donations without cash?
Givt has developed a technological solution for those people who don’t have cash, but want to make an economic contribution to an organization at that time, and with the same facilities an anonymity as before. This is an application for smartphones and a backend system for making transactions.
Who’s this solution intended?
Currently there are many organizations that are already part of this community and use Givt. From churches to street musicians. On this map you can take a look.
How does the solution work?
The solution consists of a physical device to collect the money, that incorporates a Bluetooth beacon inside. The information packet sent by the beacon is used to identify the organization the donor wants to make the contribution to.
Thus, when the smartphone of the person who wants to donate is near the device and has the Givt application opened, it collects the signal emitted by the beacon. If at that time there’s Internet connection, the donation will be sent directly. If, on the other hand, there is no Internet connection, the transaction will be saved and sent as soon as the smartphone reconnects to the Internet and opens the app.
Why do you decide to use beacon technology for this project?
We use beacon technology because of different reasons:
- There are more smartphones that support Bluetooth than NFC.
- It works on longer ranges than NFC.
- It’s easier to hide in the bag than an NFC sticker.
- A friend had worked with beacons once and we had enough knowledge about embedded systems and protocols to integrate this solution easily.
In this link you’ll find more information about the project: https://www.givtapp.net/en/