Building Privacy-Preserving Humanitarian Data Infrastructure on the Internet Computer

Developers Showcase
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Project highlights

Coala Pay is building end-to-end infrastructure for humanitarian assistance. Our platform supports organizations delivering cash and incentive-based payments while securely managing sensitive beneficiary data.

Target users include humanitarian organizations, donors, and regulated payment providers operating in complex environments. The core problem we address is fragmented systems where sensitive beneficiary data is copied, pooled, and shared across actors - creating privacy, coordination, and accountability risks.

Our guiding principle is data that can talk without being shared. Coala Pay enables payments and data processing without requiring centralized data pooling, allowing organizations to coordinate while maintaining full control over their data.

Web3 advantages

In traditional Web2 systems, humanitarian payments and beneficiary data are managed through centralized databases, shared spreadsheets, and trust-based integrations. This creates single points of failure and forces organizations to trade off coordination against privacy.

By running both payments orchestration and data processing on-chain, Coala Pay enables cryptographic enforcement of access control, immutable auditability, and data minimization by design.

How it’s built

The system is built entirely on the Internet Computer:

  • Frontend web console deployed as a frontend canister

  • Backend canisters for beneficiary data, payments, authorization, and audit logs

  • Authentication via Internet Identity

  • Identity-based encryption using IC cryptography (vetKD)

  • Backend logic implemented in Motoko

  • Frontend built with modern web tooling and direct canister calls

A key design decision was to colocate encrypted data with the logic that processes it, enabling computation without data exposure.

Internet Computer superpowers

This project relies heavily on Internet Computer–specific capabilities:

  • Frontend and backend can run fully on-chain with no traditional servers

  • Internet Identity provides passwordless, cryptographic authentication

  • vetKD enables identity-based encryption without managing keys

  • Canisters allow us to deploy processing logic directly alongside encrypted data

These features make it possible to build privacy-preserving data services that would otherwise require complex off-chain workarounds.

Go-To-Market strategy

Coala Pay’s go-to-market approach reflects how shared infrastructure is adopted in regulated, multi-actor environments.

Rather than onboarding individual users, adoption occurs through coordination bodies, consortiums, and institutional processes where common infrastructure is evaluated collectively. Entry points are problem-driven, focusing on recognized coordination challenges such as duplicate assistance risk, limited auditability, and fragmented data workflows.

Deployments are governance-first and intentionally scoped, allowing partners to define rules for data use, consent, and accountability before technical enforcement. Initial rollouts involve a small number of organizations with different system types, enabling real-world testing without forcing system replacement or data centralization.

Expansion is based on demonstrated operational outcomes, not assumptions. Because data canisters function as a neutral middleware layer, organizations can participate while retaining full data ownership, lowering adoption barriers and enabling scale through coordination rather than platform lock-in.

Monetization

Coala Pay is building a for-profit platform delivered as shared infrastructure for institutional users.

Monetization follows how complex, multi-actor systems are adopted and funded in regulated environments. Rather than transaction-level fees, pricing is structured around three stages:

  1. Decision & Evidence – time-bound deployments that allow partners to evaluate interoperability workflows under real operational conditions before committing at scale.

  2. Participation & Adoption – one-time onboarding for organizations that choose to connect their systems, aligned to their level of technical integration.

  3. Ongoing Operations – predictable, service-based fees to sustain the shared middleware layer, including security, auditability, and governance enforcement.

This structure ensures that evidence precedes commitment, participation is voluntary and proportional, and long-term costs are shared rather than centralized. The data canister layer is monetized as a neutral middleware service, enabling interoperability without forcing system replacement or data pooling.

Coala Pay is actively working with partners to move from grant-supported development to commercialized deployments, aligned with institutional procurement and accountability requirements.

Status of the project

The core system is complete and operational. We have implemented end-to-end payment workflows, encrypted beneficiary data processing, role-based access control, and immutable audit logging within a fully on-chain architecture on the Internet Computer.

The system demonstrated in the pitch video reflects a working production deployment, not a proof of concept. We are now engaging partners on controlled, real-world deployments and integrations, focused on validating interoperability workflows and governance assumptions under live operational conditions.

Resources

Future Plans

Next steps focus on transitioning from grant-supported development to live, multi-partner deployments. This includes applying the data canister architecture to real coordination use cases, expanding supported workflows such as deduplication, referrals, and aggregated reporting, and validating governance and operational assumptions under field conditions.

In parallel, we plan to engage more deeply with the Internet Computer community through technical demos, documentation, and showcases, and to explore additional ecosystem partnerships that support responsible adoption at scale.

1 Like
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I want to try it out but it wont let me continue without entering personal details like full name and email. Is there a way to check it out before deciding whether or not to submit those details? Or a way to go back and fill them in later?

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Looks like a scam to me, i logged in, added fake name and email. There is nothing built, users name and email is visible for everyone.

1 Like
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Thanks for the interest and the questions.

Just to clarify, this is not a publicly accessible platform. It is designed for humanitarian organizations and regulated partners, and access is restricted. Users will not see any functionality or data unless their identity and role are explicitly approved.

For those interested in understanding how the system works, the pitch video from the original post includes a short demo and architecture walkthrough.

We’ll continue sharing technical details and design decisions as the project evolves.

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So why share this here ?

Again what’s the point ?

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Fair question. We created the post to document the technical work completed under our ICP grant milestone and to share how we’re using ICP features to build end-to-end infrastructure for humanitarian assistance.

While the platform isn’t publicly accessible, the architecture and patterns are relevant to others building privacy-preserving applications on ICP