Blockchain Association of Africa (BAA), a South Africa based non-profit pan-African organisation, announced its strategic partnership with Afriplains Digital, Tanzania(AFD) and Blockchain Worx, Singapore (BCW) to leverage synergies and further its efforts to equip the community and stakeholders in Africa with hands-on Blockchain education, acumen and tools to shape Africa’s future.
The partnership will focus on the common vision of driving technology evangelization, community outreach, capacity building and local talent building.
This will be targeted towards driving adoption, helping the implementation of this cutting-edge technology and bringing sustainable, unparalleled business-value to Africa. As a part of the alliance, the three parties will kick-off their collaboration by deploying Blockchain Worx’s Blockchain Innovation Centre across local chapters in South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda & Tanzania.
The Blockchain Innovation Centre is a digital centre of excellence, designed to explore possibilities, forge alliances and accelerate innovation within institutions and communities.
Blockchain is a native digital technology that is setting up the financial-services and other industries for significant transformation.
While most blockchain applications are still in their early days, distinct categories of use cases have begun to emerge, with numerous projects now moving beyond the ‘concept/idea’ phase. Blockchain use cases are often exciting to explore and research, however it’s important to also understand the gap between the potential and tangibility of implementation.
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The Blockchain Innovation Centre is designed to help institutions – public and private, to understand and harness the potential of this emerging technology. With a well-rounded knowledge base, a bouquet of ready-to-use development tools and a select set of relevant PoC/demo applications, any institution can have its OWN Blockchain Innovation Lab in a matter of days.
These resources are carefully selected to ensure relevancy, aid with understanding the potential of the technology and help the organization develop and evolve applicable use-cases.
“Africa is no longer the dark continent, and everyone is looking at Africa now. Blockchain will ensure that Africans are now stakeholders in what the continent has to offer and it all starts with education,” says Yaliwe Soko, the Chairwoman for Blockchain Association of Africa. She further adds that “This partnership will ensure that upcoming generation is equipped with the right skills and expertise to move the continent further.”
“As the interest in Blockchain Technology gains momentum across Africa and people are able to see the true potential of the technology, beyond the obvious use-case of cryptocurrencies, it becomes imperative that we build the necessary infrastructure and ecosystem that can help create awareness, provide effective tools to develop skills and talent locally and create innovative use-cases that are truly designed to solve the problems that we, as African Businesses and Society experience,” says Merlin Van Lawick, Director of Afriplains Digital, Tanzania.
“We are super excited to team up with Blockchain Association of Africa and Afriplains Digital to deploy our premier Blockchain Innovation Centre solution, across communities and local chapters in Africa. We truly believe that Africa has potential to lead the way for the rest of the world and showcase how to effectively leverage and make use of technological advances for sustainable and inclusive growth., says Sumantra Naik, Co-founder & COO, Blockchain Worx, Singapore.
