November 2018: Financial Inclusion Week Reflections

It’s been a busy month! Access has made great strides — read below to hear what we have been up to.

According to the recent World Bank Findex survey, financial inclusion in Africa increased dramatically from 23% in 2011 to 43% in 2017. Driving this charge is the proliferation of new banking infrastructure mobile money — an initiative that banks, governments, and mobile network operators are spearheading in tandem.

Continued Steps Forward, on the Ground

With this news, Access is excited to celebrate financial inclusion week. Here’s what we’ve been up to this month:

• We have open sourced and released documentation for the Access Dev DAO, which is being designed to autonomously sustain long-term ecosystem development. While our network has not yet launched, this developer documentation gives potential partners ideas for apps that they might consider developing. Check it out, here.
• Atlas’ user numbers are growing! We now have 84,000 users and have grown almost 300% this year.

Narratives We Care About

The future of African ingenuity and entrepreneurship is built on the experiences of women, who serve as leaders and pillars in their local communities. Take a look at this animation from the World Bank Findex, which explains persisting inequalities that exist between men and women. Since their company foundings, Access and Atlas have worked to reverse this trend.

Walking the Talk

In honor of Financial Inclusion Week and in celebration of West Africa’s women leaders, we’d like to share three stories with you.

• Meet Aida. She’s one of four Senegalese leaders who runs a 300-person women’s economic co-op. Imagine: entrepreneurs, of all walks of life, aligning to share livelihoods to build thriving businesses. In addition to working together, this community maintains its own, independent banking infrastructure. Learn how her community has been using DLT and Multi-Sig technology for decades, to manage their financial records. It’s a pen-and-paper version of blockchain and validation into the power of decentralization.
• Learn about Atlas’s agent network. Human infrastructure is mission-critical, for creating trust-based, decentralized banking infrastructure across a continent that otherwise struggles with high rates of fraud, corruption, and failure rates of major financial institutions. Learn about the critical role that our agent network takes on.
• Meet our agents. See for yourself, what a day in the life of an Atlas agent looks like. Meet 3 agents, two of whom are women who provide last-mile banking services to local entrepreneurs.

Our Team Expands

We’d like to welcome Erin O’Grady, our new office manager, to our New York Team. Learn about her background, perspectives, and the value that she brings to the Access team below. We’re lucky to have her on board:

“After a recent move back to the United States, I was looking for a role that would allow me to continue on a path of building a purpose-driven career.

I had a few factors guiding this mission. Firstly, over the past year or so, I began to take a personal interest in the blockchain space, which I believe represents true financial innovation.

I also am very interested in social entrepreneurship as a means to solve some of the most pressing issues faced by our planet today, and I have been interested in working at a social enterprise for some time now.

I found this opportunity on one of my favorite job sites, Idealist. I was particularly interested in how this role represented a crux between these numerous interests of mine. I decided to apply, and the rest was history!”

Join Our Journey

We’re spearheading a financial revolution, with key backers and partners. Become a part of the movement today:

Website: http://joinaccess.com
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/acx_network/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ACXnetwork/
Twitter: @ACX_Network
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/acxnetwork/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/accessnetwork/

Contributors Statement

This work was a collaboration between the entire Access Network team, ranging from the CEO to CTO, COO, Chief of Staff, and other members of leadership. Emily Burchill, Shannon Wu, Erin O’Grady, Ritika Puri, and Karissa Domondon created this story.

Disclosure

The opinions expressed are those of the authors and are no guarantee of the future performance of any Access Network fund or service. This material has been prepared for educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for, investment, accounting, legal or tax advice. Access Network is currently unlaunched and has not announced a token generation event. Blog posts are intended to provide education about the business model and its path to development, only.