The Orb and World App, developed by Tools for Humanity, present a bold design vision for establishing proof of personhood in the digital age—while safeguarding privacy and enabling inclusive access.
The Orb is a biometric device in the shape of a sphere. The outer shell is sculpted from lightweight, high-durability materials and embedded with sensors and an internal iris scanner to capture a unique biometric pattern, creating a World ID that verifies a user is human, without collecting personally identifiable information. Placed in global cities—from shopping districts to remote areas, the Orb is designed for public and mass accessibility. With the goal of providing broad social infrastructure functionality such as proof of personhood for digital voting, bot filtration on social media and access to financial systems. The Orb is paired with the World App to complete the verification process.
Paired with the World App, a minimalist mobile interface, users complete the verification process and gain access to a secure, self-custodied identity wallet. This system empowers people to authenticate their personhood anonymously, enabling access to digital assets, decentralized apps, financial services, and systems like voting or universal income.
Together, the Orb and World App propose a blueprint for how designand public infrastructure can be implemented to build digital trust, human agency, and belonging in an era that is being shaped by AI.
