The FLIP- Digital Public Goods and Digital Public Infrastructure Are the Answer to Every SDG Question

DPGs and DPI are Tools for Systemic Change

"The future is already here — it's just not evenly distributed." William Gibson

Time to Walk the Talk

What kind of economic, trade, technology and social systems would we create if we started over? Digital Public Goods and Digital Public Infrastructure are emerging categories of Web3 technologies that answer these questions. There are working examples of these innovations that make everything I know about climate remediation and the UN’s Sustainability Development Goals actionable. In other words, we can finally stop talking and start doing—we can be the change. These new frameworks will reshape our lives even more profoundly than the Web2 Internet has over three decades. On-chain projects natively increase bargaining leverage for stakeholders at the bottom.

When most of us hear Web3 or blockchain, we think of crypto, NFTs, and air-dropped token economies—which are dazzling casinos disconnected from daily life. Web3's truly impactful innovations are the underlying blockchain-style frameworks quietly constructing social benefit infrastructure. An important new development, Mojaloop, a DPG from the Gates Foundation is a the proof-of-concept you’ll want to know about. Mojaloop joins Holochain and other DPGs/DPI in creating equitable, interoperable, and secure systems that will define the future of public benefit projects. Here’s how DPGs/DPI work on climate, circularity, human rights, and governance.

Digital Public Goods, Digital Public Infrastructure & Systemic Change

The Cambridge Dictionary says, "A systemic problem or change is a basic one, experienced by the whole of an organization or a country and not just particular parts of it." Digital Public Goods (DPGs) and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) are collaborative tools that drive bottom-up systemic change. I say “systemic” because decentralized transactions and information exchanges increase bargaining power for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid, by delivering on promises around people, data, and money. This makes DPGs/DPI more than just technology—they reorder the foundations of democratic, digital, community-based collaboration, management, and market ecosystems—in favor of people at the bottom. Changes in negotiating strength ripple through relationship economies to create organization-level systemic change.  The United Nations Development Programme estimates DPI can accelerate economic growth by 20% to 33% in low and middle-income countries.

Understanding Web3 & Blockchain-Like Services

Web3 is a broad, flexible term for technologies like the Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain-type services. "Agents"—technology frameworks that act independently, without human involvement—differentiate Web2 from Web3. AI and blockchain-based Agents work differently, but both follow pre-agreed rules or generative actions. Code-driven decisions are the dynamism and newness that makes Web3 so useful.

Agents

Adding to the confusion, "Agents" are both a technology and an economic framework. Agents can participate in economic activities like creating value, exchanging resources, and making agreements with other agents. Agents can be individuals, organizations/groups that act as one, or ecological entities (like forests and ecosystems) to account for environmental impacts and relationships. This flexibility aligns with Web3's on-chain dynamism, where traditional double-entry bookkeeping will transform into the ISO-standard Resources, Events, and Agents (REA) system. REA makes the world's $100 trillion GDP programmable.

In October 2024, the Gates Foundation announced the activation of Mojaloop, a DPG that delivers Web3 banking services through DPI partners. DPI addresses structural, and societal challenges to help people transform their lives and communities. In Mojaloop's case, it enables mobile payments that bring 730 million unbanked adults into the digital economy. 2025 is a pivotal year—when the transition from Web2 to Web3 flips access to opportunities, information, and services—leveling the playing field for hundreds of millions more people. 

Progress. Prevention. Systemic Transformation.

DPGs and DPI introduce transformative tools that add new value while providing critical safeguards. These systems create prescriptive transformations, new capabilities and novel protections. When shocks occur, as they inevitably do, DPI’s become a new type of defensive safety net by offering resilient and incorruptible governance-in-code that works no matter what.

Collaborative access to economic information, a key prescriptive feature, unlocks value by fostering more equitable decision-making. Armed with real-time data, individuals and communities can make informed choices that promote both equity and productivity. Imagine how the Covid response or the Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 could have been different if everyone had known causation earlier? Simultaneously? Peer-to-peer collaboration could shift from today’s monolithic, divisive economic models toward a more inclusive, individualized system that expands opportunities. Put simply, better coordination empowers more people to thrive.

What If?

While prescriptive elements create value, proscriptive functions are equally important. DPGs and DPIs can act as economic shock absorbers, autonomously allocating resources like food, shelter, and services, adjusting taxes and subsidies, and delivering aid where needed. These systems could accelerate recovery in disrupted communities. During Hurricane Idalia in 2023, for example, DPG/DPI systems could have enabled faster, more targeted aid distribution and could have coordinated local resources and volunteers. Real-time data sharing could have predicted flooding patterns, saving lives and reducing the $2.5 billion in damages. Applied to challenges like climate migration and powered by Web3 technologies and 2 billion smallholders, the potential for DPG/DPI transformations is immense.

Open-Source Economic, Governance, & Participation Frameworks

Open-Source frameworks lower barriers to participation and empower people—especially those at the bottom—to actively shape their futures. A lightweight, open-source approach to DPGs and DPI fosters rapid innovation with lower costs and risks. Perfect for low-cost, low-resources countries. The open-source ethos encourages broader innovation without vendor lock-in or reliance on expensive proprietary systems. The flexibility of "lite solutions" and composable code allows fast adaptation to emerging needs, enabling systems tailored for local contexts. 

Adaptability empowers diverse groups to develop and refine projects, ranging from localized initiatives to large, complex economic systems. My analysis is that DPG/DPI adoption will follow the Gartner Hype Cycle. Mojaloop is the innovation trigger. But, Open-Source, low-cost, composable development could speed-up the DPGs/DPI hype cycle. Projects and adoption could all move fast now.

The Rise of Stakeholders and Democratic Capitalism

DPGs empower stakeholders with new models of governance, participation, and consensus rooted in democratic principles. Open-source transparency builds trust through auditable decision-making, while decentralized protocols align DPGs with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taken together, DPGs and DPI decentralize power, control, and money—pushing them towards the network’s edges.

In decentralized environments, one-way value extraction transforms into two-way community-driven management and value creation. DPIs drive systemic change by increasing transparency, reducing cronyism, reshaping how businesses organize, how brands position, and how partners collaborate—to deliver long-term stakeholder value.

Post-Conflict Governance & Reconstruction

DPI fosters transparent, accountable market ecosystems by embedding policies and operations in digital systems. This recenters market forces and balances environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, and democratic governance. In conflict areas like Ukraine and Gaza, where infrastructure is destroyed, DPI can restore essential services and business operations faster than rebuilding physical structures. 

The Gates Foundation's Mojaloop project demonstrates this: in Tanzania, Mojaloop enables interoperable digital payments between banks, mobile providers, and financial services, expanding financial inclusion without extensive physical infrastructure. The United Nations Development Programme claims banking more people via DPIs could add up to $2 trillion to the GDP of emerging economies by 2030. Over time, a wide range of DPGs and Open-Source distributed networks will emerge to serve communities affordable, localized services.

Digital Public Infrastructure & the EU Green Deal

Europe's grand project is the circular economy metamorphosis based on a "growth without consumption" strategy. The European Union's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)—at the intersection of fashion, technology, and sustainability—sets up the circumstances for circularity. The ESPR inaugurates what I believe is the most consequential transformation of global trade since World War II.

The ESPR legislates Digital Product Passports, which require robust supply chain tracing and product development rules that fundamentally change how goods are made. Fashion will lead circularity because textiles are in the first tranche of products. The ESPR's volume and complexity require blockchain-style automation. DPI creates transparent, accountable economic structures that recenter market forces and balance environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, and democratic governance. To me, that means DPGs and DPIs are the only viable technology path to achieving the regulation's letter and spirit.

A New Ethos

Holochain is a DPG technology infrastructure, a community management system, and a market ecosystem that can make promises around people, data, and money at almost zero transaction costs. Zero transaction costs really matter if the EU wants to bring the Global South into the Green Deal project. Holochain has most of the advantages of blockchain, with none of the drawbacks of high prices, energy use, and scalability. Holochain uses a distributed network design that deploys unused computing and storage on cell phones and laptops at low costs and at huge scale.

Open-Source protocols redefine collaboration, value creation, and governance by embracing ethical principles like open access, transparent governance, and equitable participation. Holochain can create alternative Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for everyone, everywhere. It may even be possible for Holochain to go beyond currently envisioned DPPs with product-level (vs. batch-level) NFT-style verifications that embed climate goals and democratic values into transactions. Moreover, the ESPR creates an economic infrastructure inherently resistant to manipulation, cronyism and authoritarianism. Holochain, as a solution for Digital Product Passports, is not just a technology but a vision for a better, more democratic, more sustainable future.

No More Excuses

The real question isn't whether these tools will transform the world—Mojaloop demonstrates that DPGs already are. The better question is how we will harness the tools to build the future we need—or, more aptly, how your community will shape its destiny through DPGs and DPI.

By actively engaging with these economic powerhouses, we can take charge of our economic and environmental futures—solving problems that have long seemed intractable. There are no more excuses for waiting to unlock a more equitable, creative, resilient, and sustainable world. We have proof that DPGs and DPI work. Let’s get after it.

United Nations Development Programme Definitions

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) describes Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) as shaping digital components that enable public and private service delivery at scale and catalyze vibrant and dynamic innovation ecosystems of businesses, civil society organizations, and other innovations. By applying DPI across economies and societies and using it to tackle sector-specific priorities and challenges, countries can accelerate their growth and development – with positive impacts on people, the planet, and prosperity.

The UNDP defines DPGs as "Any open-source software, open data, open AI model, open standard or open content that does no harm by design, as well as helps with the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals." They're designed to be freely and openly available for everyone to use and adapt, particularly in developing countries. And DPIs as " A set of digital building blocks which are interoperable, built on open standards and specifications providing access to public and private services at societal scale and are governed by enabling rules to drive innovation, inclusion, and competition in the digital economy."