Eric Annan - Ayaversity.com - Real Impact and Use Cases - ETHSafari 2023: The Conference Highlights

Transcript

2016 2017 there was a company a project called one coin who knows one coin one coin one coin Uganda it was a big deal in Uganda it was a big deal in Nigeria it was a big deal in Kenya a lot of us lost all our savings uh fast forward the reason why I didn't stop blockchain it answered two questions for me the first question was um as an African you wake up and you look around and you don't see many opportunities your folks in Hong Kong Singapore Silicon Valley in San Francisco New York on Germany right but you have high fting dreams you want to be able to provide value you want to be

able to do a lot of things but simply you don't have access so what I saw the blockchain and having a PR to work with a company called Huawei in Ghana for 3 and a half years there were a lot of things I could see with technology unfortunately those opportunity were not so much available for us and the blockchain answered those two those two questions for me you see Africa is 54 countries right so you meet everybody oh I'm from Kenya but if you met an European and ask that European oh where are you from the first don't did not usually say I'm from France or I'm from Germany they say I'm I'm I'm I'm European but if you met African you ask oh where are you from I'm from Nigeria I'm from Ghana I'm from South Africa I'm

from Kenya we advanc our count individual countries more than being an African right and so the blockchain provided those two answers for me the number one was access to Global Financial Gateway which was not possible before blockchain so if you are in Ghana for example you are a b to Togo Ivory Coast Bina F to the north two other country before Nigeria but guess what if you wanted to send $100 to your brother who may be schooling in Togo because he want to learn French it was a nightmare first of all you go to the bank and the bank have to send the money through Wy Union somehow transfer it has to hit a bank in New York before it get

back to Togo which is just 4 hours drive from Ghana that experience never happened to anybody in Europe at least in the last 20 years but that has been our reality ever since I was gone and ever I mean till blockchain came but immed blockchain came and crypto was the first two on the blockchain it solved that problem instantly that's why even though I lost money I de deeper into the blockchain and asked another question okay now we have Financial inclusion now we can do Financial intimidation I can send money to somebody in China without the person knowing me I can be able to send money to somebody in sou Africa without going to the bank on my wallet but what other thing can we do with the blockchain Africa am is the youngest continent today the Chinese population

is declining is kind of plateauing Europe is plateauing America people are not giving birth as it used to be Africa is 1.4 billion people in less than 6,000 years from now we are going to have 1 billion young people in Africa midi age of 18 more than India and China combined now if you are doubting ask more questions oh blockchain blockchain blockchain so what well blockchain is a tool that has Global philosophy global inclusion that you do not need permission from nobody that oh we own the we own the birth right or the patent therefore you have to wait for everybody else to complete before we come in blockchain do not have that there's a global inclusion from day one but the next thing we need to ask is if you all

understand that blockchain do not have right all the needed usage in the west which is true the question is what exactly is block serving in America do you think China will move away from their heavy invest in their financial tools that they have today like wechart move all the centralized system that they have today and say oh because blockchain is so nice and Technology let's use blockchain instantly do you think they will do that they will not do that do you think I mean Europe will move out from sepa instantly and say oh because blockchain is so fast it's cheaper let's forget our systems and new blockchain they're not going to do that easily but in Africa just as we use mobile phone weog by 20 2000 there were more landline in New York that it was in

the of Africa in 2000 today there are more mobile phones in Africa people are use mobile phone in Africa that you have in New York we live frog not only that it was Africa that especially this beautiful country called Kenya that African were able to innovate mobile number to make it account bank account and that you didn't need to go to bank to bank account today almost every Kenyan has Mesa account I've been here I'm using m I I pay my bike with empa I go to the empa I don't need to go to the bank so Africa we always Le we are going to blockchain in such a manner and a way that the innovators of the technology will never see we are talking about 1 billion users for blockchain right it's

never going to happen in Europe it's never going to happen in China it's never going to happen in North America it's going to happen in the global South Africa but the question is what I see in the in a global conversation I mean I travel a lot I a lot of conferences I go to a lot of conferences and usually go and it's like oh we have the best technology yes oh our technology is the best among all the other protocols yes so what I a developer person my background is development and i' I've read and understood that all the template that we have used for Africa oh IMF World Bank will say oh this how we did it in Europe this how we did it in America and you must copy the same template it doesn't

work real development doesn't come from Top real development is Grassroots micro I believe in micro development than it is from the top so if you indeed you have a good technology and all you think is oh Africa has younger people they are more useful and that let let them use no it's going to work my challenge to you is if indeed blockchain is a need in Africa and the global South South America part of South Asia is is really a need there what we need to begin to conversation that we need to be having now is how do we develop that sector of the continent that part of the country with talent because you see you don't have users

until you have Builders there's no users until we have Builders and those Builders are those that are going to use it and also expand it to other people I'll give example in the Last 5 Years what I've done my first startup I bu the first start startup called digital cod in Nigeria was the first OTC in 2017 within 3 months I was able to trade Bitcoin over $3 million in 3 months the first forward in 2018 we built cubex now CU will give bir to many many of these people that you see here Ivon was the first lady I employed in Kenya she was just up out of school and today look at what IV is doing in Kenya George who led binance expansion East Africa I remember on the fet of August 2018 at Sankara hotel in Nairobi he came

to my my my my hotel sat and I I mean I got him convinced that hey blockchain is the future he joined my my startup and judge was amazing Juliana from Kenya I had more than 10 people working with us in my startup and today when I look back that start didn't work because of regulations and talent but I look back today and I look front I see I doing amazing thing right I see George expanded and and doing great things Brian and so many of that that I call myself Talent Builder so my challenge to you if you're a protocol Builder and protocol owner here Africa is your Market yes but that market is still going to expand until you support the Builder or Builders if you don't develop the talent in Africa where access to

opportunity like for example you go to Singapore you can have more than 10 different Talent houses where or co-working spaces where even if I don't have money I can just go there maybe buy a small cup of coffee and get access to Internet you don't have that in most part of Africa Kenya so we have current um deaths and then you have um the lower part of Kenya um there no I'm not a privileged African I buil my life knowing that the only thing that make sense is value and the only thing that value understand is that your identity is tied to your credential and your credential is tied to your integrity and whatever you do have a signature and if you know it's not the paper M that we

have is the ability to empower other people that make us grow so the question I have for you this afternoon stop thinking about users in Africa and let's stop talking about builders in Africa if you raise one person to become a builder that person will raise 100 people and that's only way we can have 1 billion users and my challenge to you is that start thinking about Africa for a long term Africa is not where we have Silicon Valley we don't have those infrastructure we don't have infrastructure like we have in Singapore and therefore if you're looking to Africa see where we doing this today you never I mean you not have kind of experience in in Europe but you haven't here so you're going back with the experience and then begin to think about this way how do I Empower young people in universities in Kenya in Nigeria in

Cameroon in Ivory Coast in Uganda for them to actually understand this technology so they can use the techn to solve problems for their local people the same Essa has included more than 40 million people in Kenya the same way young people in Africa can solve the problem understanding their nuances local nuances because if you build a product from Silicon Valley for example and oh we can for 1 billion people in Africa it's not working because you know what many of us don't use heavy smart phones how many of us are using iPhone here in Africa people are using small small um SN I mean phones like itel it doesn't have capacity so before they can download your app they have to either delete their WhatsApp which is very difficult for them to delete their

WhatsApp and therefore if you thinking about solution that can on board billion people you need to think about tech such as ussd who can bu that one is that African young man because he understand this locality and therefore I advocate for micro up not micro micro never work it gets to the top get to the middle nobody care about those down but if you care so much about growth if you care so much about advancement impact let's build from ground up and develop that talent but that talent in it locality will able to add more people in this locality and that's how we can see exponential growth I believe blockchain is a te belong to Africa it's a need here it's just a nice thing to have in the west and if you need to have that

conversation let's have a conversation that empowers seek to really really make this technology become Global become adoptable and everybody is happy about it I'm not I don't develop but I believe that young people in this continent are the most greatest asset we have and if you can develop them give them the to that they need I tell in 5 years we have billion users because Africans are excited when they see that things can Empower them today block is empowering a lot of people there's a gentleman behind me he's called a he started with three Bridge with no support to today he has trained more than 150 soft engineers and his community are the highest contributor to stet do you hear that his community is the highest contributor to stagnate

development