Umoja

01 — PROBLEM

Traditional financial systems exclude billions of unbanked and underbanked people. Without a bank account or formal credit history, individuals with volatile incomes can be considered high-risk despite demonstrating financial responsibility, making it difficult to safely manage money, build credit, or access loans.

02 — PRODUCT & SOLUTION

Umoja creates a self-sovereign digital identity and alternative credit scoring system for financially underserved users. Users can: - Create a permanent digital identity on Solana using a selfie - Receive an Empirical Financial Inclusion Score (EFIS) - Build an immutable on-chain financial reputation - Access pathways toward micro-loans and capital - Manage their identity and financial information through a browser-based dashboard

03 — STATUS & LEARNINGS

Built as a first in-person hackathon project, Umoja taught the team how to develop a full-stack decentralized application from the ground up. Key challenges included designing a smooth blockchain UX, translating the EFIS mathematical model into functional code through the Wolfram API, and implementing accessible selfie liveness detection. The project reinforced the value of approaching complex problems from first principles and using computational tools to rapidly turn research-heavy ideas into working products.

04 — TECH STACK & INFRASTRUCTURE