I didn’t know this before going to Korea for the first time, but it is one of the most caffeinated countries in the world.
This is evident when you walk around as the concentration of coffee shops is higher than anywhere else I’ve been so far.
After Coffee (site in Korean) is a non-profit project that has two objectives: First, they believe in fair trade with the coffee producers in third world countries.
Secondly, they would like to give free coffee to people who can’t afford to pay $3 for a cup of coffee.
To do this, they encourage people to use the After Coffee app as an e-Payment medium. They partner with coffee shops to participate, and each time a coffee cup is bought through their program, half of the proceeds go towards the coffee producers (fair trade) and half to go a budget which is used to give free coffee to who wants one. As the math suggests: coffee shops donate their time, space and money to contribute to the cause.
And of course, all of this works based on the fact that people don’t abuse the free coffee system. Depending on where you come from, this system may or may not translate well at all. The app just launched recently, and there are only a couple of participating chains right now, but they can be spotted thanks to the After Coffee logo above. Can one make the world better through free coffee? I don’t know, but someone surely ought to try.
Filed in . Read more about GMV, GMV 2014, Korea and Startups.