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Africa Tech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda

Report by Akin Sawyerr

Info:

Decred presence:

  • attendees: @akinsawyerr, @beansgum

Overview

Africa Tech Summit is a bi-annual event held in Kigali and London. It is a pre-eminent event that provides unrivalled insight, networking and business opportunities for African and international tech leaders and investors who want to do business in Africa.

The three day tech summit in Kigali featured: The Future Summit, The Money & Blockchain Summit and The Africa Startup Summit. Each explored the latest trends, connected 600+ digital leaders, tech corporates, MNO's, banks, investors, regulators, startups, creatives media and leading tech ventures from across Africa over an action-packed three days of insight, networking and entertainment.

Expectations and Goals

I went into this event with a lot of high expectations which were largely met. I wanted to communicate the long term Decred value proposition to regulators, startups, investors, and people who represent the segements of African professional society that are and will continue to be the early adopters and developers of cryptocurrency usecases across the continent. Below is a summary of the feedback I got from talking to people within the aforementioned target groups.

Regulators

I was able to connect with a couple of regulators from Kenya, the 2nd largest economy in East Africa behind Ethiopia, and the most vibrant and well developed tech ecosystem in the region. Kenya established a crypto currency task force March 2018 that is tasked with developing a 15-year roadmap that will enable the country to tap into the emerging opportunities in the cryptocurrency space. I had the opportuntiy to connect with Hon. Michael Onyago who is a member of the 11 person task force, and Mr. Breitner Nyantika, a Strategy and Policy Officer at Capital Markets Authority of Kenya.

While Kenya is one of the more proactive countries in Africa that is looking into the cryptocurrency space and looking to develop sound regulations and policies, its was also very apparent how big the knowledge gap is between regulators and practitioners in the cryptocurrency space. I did find that Mr. Breitner Nyantika in particular was very open to learning and trying to undertsand my perspectives and we talked for over 2 hrs, exchanging ideas in a cordial manner. I eneded things telling him he is the first regulator I actually consider a friend :).

The regulators across the African countries of note generally are still in a wait, learn, and see mode. In the mean time innovaion pushes on.

Startups

This was the most diverse and polarising group of people I engaged with. The handful of builders in the crypto space that I spoke to really wanted to know more about Decred and wrap their heads around minute details about what makes Decred distinct and particularly relevant within the African context. Most made very quick connections between the Decred governance process and the governance failings that are rampant across African public and private institutions. A big part of Decred's future in Africa will hinge on getting the attention and mindshare of problem solves and builders in the tech space.

Enterperneurs that fall into the conventional "fintech" space that has been the focus of the majority of VC investments across Africa generally are not paying much attention to the crypto space. You are either in crypto and building on crypto platforms or you are not.

Venture Capitalists

Unsurprisingly many of the VCs in the room where much better informed about crypto, a number pitched me on investments they had made in the space and the future prospects of the space. I see VCs as a good channel to gather information on the builders and goings on in the space acorss Africa. They are typically the most engaged highly educated group that are active in the crypto industry.

As time goes by it will be important for Decred to be increasingly visible as a place for highly enagaged builders and talent to develop locally relevant solutions from the infrastructure stack we are churning out.

Individual Investors and General Attendants

I had a few engaging group conversations that were mostly about "Why crypto" from a use case but mostly from a desire to understand position. A lot of the conversation was deflecting inquires for investment advice and refocusing the conversation to my general perspecives on crypto as harder money that is enabling new markets that are fairer, censorship resistant, etc.

Outcomes

All in all a great experience that levelled up my understanding of whats happening in the East Africa / Southern African crypto space. A lot of people are eager to undertsand and leverage crypto to solve real problems they see every day. When Decred is ready to actively pursue use cases that build on our stack there will be a lot of open and able hands available to engage with.

Next Steps

I was invited to speak at the London leg of the conference in May 2020 (prior to attending I was offered a free ticket to attend London). The London leg of the Africa Tech Summit attracts a lot of African diaspora and senior people in the UK Africa investing and technology space.

Photos

Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4 Pic 5 Pic 6 Pic 7 Pic 8

Photos are mirrored on Google: