High Criteria Surgery Club (HCSC) is a non-profit project. It is a Non-fungible token (NFT) based decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that aims to explore emerging philanthropic opportunities. NFTs are new forms of digital property and are poised to play an increasing role in helping to create, monetize, and incentivize online digital content.
Unlike regular cryptocurrency tokens (interchangeable), NFTs are not interchangeable, and they thus introduce a new form of scarcity in the digital world. They can represent digital or real-world assets, providing verifiable proof of authenticity and ownership (assuming they are created by the original author or owner) using a blockchain network.
As the adoption of NFTs increases, digital and financial representation of digital as well as intellectual property grows. NFTs have true potential in the ownership economy. Creators can create, sell, and fractionalize ownership in their works, opening a new chapter for creative endeavor.
A DAO is a blockchain-based organization governed by code instead of people. It’s community-owned by its members with a built-in treasury that nobody has permission to use without approval of the group. In the case of HCSC, the group consists of each High Criteria NFT owner. HCSC is a first-of-its-kind experiment to radically reconceive and restructure grant-making. Rather than an individual advising the fund, funds are managed by the HCSC community that collectively recommend grant recipients, propose project development and execute the final plan.
High Criteria aims to develop a strong foothold in the emerging ecosystem of philanthropic DAO, bringing together the collective consciousness of a DAO to the world of NFTs. High Criteria will give its members the ability to pledge and deploy NFT-focused surgical treatment to the burn victims.
Once a High Criteria NFT is purchased, HCSC could evolve in several different directions. Mainly, a NFT would enable a free surgical treatment to a burn victim. A surgical treatment is utterly important and possesses immense gravity to a burn victim, especially in LMIC countries (Low-Middle Income Countries). It is because these people lack finance, advocacy and medical resources required to treat the devastating burn injury. Because of burn they not only suffer from physical disfigurement, functional mobility and mental pressure but also social stigma due to lack of education in their society. As a NFT owner, members will have the right and ability to vote, plan and execute a proposal. Members can discuss potential projects and vote on the direct distribution of funds. Please see below for detailed goals of this DAO project.
Any purchased NFTs can be lent, held, displayed in a digital art gallery, or used as collateral in other DeFi platforms. The direction is up to the Members.
More details about HCSC’s legal structure, operation, and funding process are outlined in this document. Please read them carefully before buying the High Criteria NFT and becoming a Member of HCSC.
The burden of catastrophic expenditure for surgery is highest in low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC) and, within any country, lands most heavily on poor people. (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60160-X/fulltext)
Burn patients require lifelong surgery, total cost per patient per burn is estimated to be around $88K in high-income countries. LMIC countries do not have insurance nor advocacy.
Each member in a DAO can steer the organization’s future by planning, voting and implementation of the proposed plan.
Burns come in a variety of types: thermal burns (flame, scald, contact), acid burns (most prevalent in LMIC countries as a form of abuse), electric burns, frostbite etc.
Not all burns are equal either: they’re measured in degrees, from 1st degree burns, which are treatable at home, to 2nd and 3rd degree burns which require hospitalization in burn ICU and multiple surgeries thereafter.
Being burned is a horrific experience and causes life threatening, often permanent damage. The implications of such injuries don't stop with their direct impact on the person's physical tissues and health: they're far-reaching, causing severe emotional distress and carrying heavy social implications.
For 2nd and 3rd degree burn wounds surgical intervention by means of excision of burn wounds and skin grafting is almost always required to close the burn wounds and prevent infection. For more than 20% TBSA (total body surface area) burns, patients require weekly visits to the operating room until the whole burnt surface area is covered and healed. Such procedures require multidisciplinary team approach; where surgeons, intensivists, highly trained burn nurses, nutritionists, respiratory therapists, physiotherapists, and wound care nurses work together in a burn ICU. It is very demanding in terms of man-power and economics. And this is just for the initial life saving phase of treatment.