This prize will be awarded by the Yun Family and affiliate entities to the Best Paper in the “Inclusive Stakeholding: Reimagining Incentives to Promote the Greater Good” article collection, for which Article Processing Charges will be waived for all authors submitting to this article collection. In addition, submitting your manuscript means you could be awarded $10,000 for your research.

Frontiers in Blockchain’s specialty Blockchain for Good, will be hosting a new article collection on Inclusive Stakeholding: reimagining incentives to promote the greater good, edited by Natalie Geld. The collection will explore blockchain’s potential to create new economic models where stakeholders’ actions of perceived self-interest are beneficial to the whole community — a model where vested interests in the welfare of fellow stakeholders are integrated within the individual’s incentive structure. The mission to drive research and debate in this area is supported by the Yun Family. All Article Processing Charges will be fully funded and a “Frontiers in Blockchain Yun Family Best Inclusive Stakeholding Research Prize” of $10,000 will be awarded to the most outstanding paper.

We caught up with the Topic Editor Natalie Geld and Yun Family ambassadors Joon Yun and Conrad Yun to find out more.

How did you become interested in blockchain?

Joon Yun: We first learned of blockchain through Bitcoin in 2013. We were intrigued by the potential of blockchain to help people build new types of social contracts with each other.

How does blockchain align with the purpose of your work? 

Joon Yun

Joon Yun: We live in a time when virtually every aspect of the status quo is being questioned. All of our prevailing social, political, and economic institutions — and the assumptions behind these experiments — are being re-examined. Humans are wired to pursue self-interest, but the pursuit of self-interest often translates to a reality other than a great society.  Indeed, as Harvard evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich notes in The Secret of Our Success, all prosocial institutions over time collapse at the hands of self-interest.

Our reason for sponsoring the Inclusive Stakeholding article collection is to help society imagine new types of social, political, and economic institutions based on establishing goal congruence and aligning the interests among stakeholders. We believe that redesigning these institutions is the greatest opportunity facing the world today. 

Natalie Geld, Topic Editor

Natalie Geld: Evolving integrative systems of influence — neurobiological to technological — are interdependent to open access and unbiased discovery, analysis, and communication across disciplines. The Blockchain for Good movement empowers nascent developers to spur innovation, to reimagine systems and business models that demonstrate revolutionary ways for adding value.

Joon and Conrad Yun, can you tell us more about why you are supporting an Inclusive Stakeholding article collection prize?

Joon Yun: We aim to highlight and reward papers which describe blockchain-based solutions that can solve the problem of aligning the interests among all stakeholders as a way to drive total value to the community. We also hope to spread the values of inclusive stakeholding among the readership of Frontiers in Blockchain as well as the broader public. Examples of issues to address include self-interested actions of social media companies, artificial intelligence, politicians, professional sports, click-bait news, junk food industry, higher education, and health insurers. The aim for the Inclusive Stakeholding Prize is to help society turn perverse incentives that promote extractive behaviours and realign them in a way that results in the best outcome for all stakeholders.

Conrad Yun

Conrad Yun: Alignment of incentives is key to the rapid adoption and scaling of blockchain technologies. Blockchain entrepreneurs can benefit from applying the principles of inclusive stakeholding to their projects to rethink and retool their existing architecture. The principles can be applied to disrupt existing business models across many industries and social structures across disparate environments by leveraging blockchain technologies.

What will you be looking for from the winning paper within the collection?

Joon Yun: The winning paper should provide the usual technical specifications of a blockchain white paper, dedicate an equal amount of space explaining how their particular model aligns the interests among all stakeholders inclusively as a way to drive total value to the community, and explain how all stakeholders are invested in each other’s welfare. Additionally, it will address the question of how indirect stakeholders benefit as a result of the success of the initiative.

Natalie Geld: Along with exploring true potential for blockchain to address difficult issues, authors should fully consider efforts toward overcoming barriers to adoption, mitigating risk, and unintended negative impact. I expect to receive submissions from the growing community of pioneers and leaders involved in Blockchain for Good projects.

Conrad Yun:  The Yun Family and affiliate entities are proud to sponsor Inclusive Stakeholding as an article collection in Frontiers in Blockchain and looks forward to the range of submissions the topic will attract.

“Inclusive Stakeholding: Reimagining Incentives to Promote the Greater Good” is open for submissions now.  For more details, and to submit your manuscript, go to the article collection page

The “Frontiers in Blockchain Yun Family Best Inclusive Stakeholding Research Prize” will be awarded at the discretion of Frontiers, in agreement with the Frontiers in Blockchain Chief Editors.

For questions about Frontiers in Blockchain, Inclusive Stakeholding, or the research prize, please email blockchain@frontiersin.org, visit the journal website or follow us on Twitter @FrontBlockchain.

Do you have expertise in another area of blockchain research? Don’t worry – Frontiers in Blockchain has just launched a new journal-wide Best Paper prize! Find out more here. 

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