October 6, 2011 – Special limited edition prototype examples of the global coin project United Future World Currency (UFWC) were presented and awarded to attending Heads of State, Ambassadors & delegates and numerous personalities of 70 Countries, during the South-South Awards Ceremony which was held in New York at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on September 19th 2011. The South-South Awards Ceremony is an event, which is coordinated with other official programs during the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
South-South News was founded by the 65th United Nations General Assembly High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation (SSC) in February 2010. The South-South Cooperation was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1978. Hosted by UNDP, (United Nations Development Program) their primary mandate is to promote, coordinate and support South-South and triangular cooperation on a Global and United Nations system-wide basis.
As part of the ceremony, prototype UFWC strikes of the world’s first “Smart Coin” increasingly referred to as the “Intelligent Coin of the future” were also unveiled. The “Smart coin” incorporates an innovative technology recently developed by leading companies in the USA and Europe in collaboration with universities and research laboratories.
The UFWC global “smart” coin.
RFID- (Radio-frequency identification) technology will also be utilized in the UFWC coin as well as in forthcoming high-tech banknotes, linking this prototype project with the external world-wide initiatives and generating an intelligent currency with a multifunctional use, difficult to counterfeit and also containing intrinsically-coded security measures, ready for the compelling challenges of the 21st century.
The UFWC “Global” Coin has been receiving ongoing international publicity following positive comments by world leaders including Russian President Dimtrij Medvedev, and other prominent Heads of State since the G8 and G20 Summits in 2009. Specially struck test coins have already been presented to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, Nobel Laureates and selected international personalities such as Sophia Loren for their humanitarian efforts. The Global Coin has even travelled into outer space along with Astronaut Paolo Nespoli for 159 days during the Expedition 26/27of the International Space Station, returning to Earth on May 23, 2010.
Dr. Sandro Sassoli, founder and general coordinator of the UFWC initiative, began the project after consultation with Prof Arthur Schlesinger Jr, former counselor of US President J.F. Kennedy. Dr. Sassoli commented in a video message “We are presenting to nations, governments, and global institutions such as the United Nations, and above all to young people – with a long-term vision of a single currency for building an ideal bridge with the future”. Further commenting, “We believe that a united currency is an inevitable social process and the premise for an increasingly global planet, most of all in an effort to combat the present worldwide financial crisis”.
The South-South Award ceremony recognizes Governments, Organizations and Individuals for their innovation and entrepreneurial use of the Information and Communications Technologies as a tool for development, a program which inspires the aims and the goals of the UFWC project.
The general public’s first all-important and “face-to-face” trial encounter with the UFWC currency plus further international trials is scheduled to occur at the Universal Expo in Milan, Italy, 2015.
For further information on this project, visit the UFWC website.
An article on the coin’s space travel you may find here.