African Blockchain Initiative Pivots into Chaptr Global
From University Clubs Blockchain Education to an Edtech Platform for Emerging Technologies
In September 2017, a group of students at African Leadership in Johannesburg, South Africa, sat down to start a small Blockchain club to educate students on Blockchain technology, its technicalities and possible applications across different industries. When we started, the idea of a Blockchain club in an African educational institution was unheard of as we suffered from very low penetration of Blockchain knowledge.
“Africa has always suffered from low penetration of global technologies. We were late on the first technological revolution (computer hardware), the second tech revolution (computer software), the third revolution (the internet age), and now, we are lagging in learning about emerging technologies such as Blockchain. We can’t keep lagging any more” — Amine Soufaih and Cyril Michino, the co-founders of African Blockchain Initiative (ABI).
What started as an internal club — with 25 students and 3 club leaders/content curators — grew into an initiative (African Blockchain Initiative) sharing Blockchain content with different university clubs across the African continent by June 2018. We had compiled our internal club content to an awesome curriculum that spoke so much value to other African universities that were to start Blockchain societies on their campuses. We were now actively working towards promoting African Blockchain adoption through our simple club-to-club education model.
The Impact of Market Interaction on Our Pivot
Interacting with the African market made us realize one thing: while Blockchain adoption is relatively low continentally, this was the same situation across other emerging technologies such as Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. The low adoption rates stemmed from poor awareness and low flexibility in higher learning institutions in adopting these technologies into their curricula. We needed an approach with a ripple effect on these depressing statistics.
“Innovation is the outcome of a habit, not a random act.” — Sukant Ratnakar
Now, the big question became: how can we inspire a habit whose outcome is incessant innovation? It is only through that, that we can inspire deeper awareness and higher involvement in some of the emerging technologies shaping the future of work and global industrial development.
Creating the habit of Tech Innovation in Emerging Markets
In April 2019, Chaptr was born with two particular changes from the market-inspired pivot:
- We are now offering more than just Blockchain education in response to the market gaps we discovered in our journey. Today, we offer Data Science and soon to be launched Artificial Intelligence education. But, don’t rule out us expanding this list to other revolutionary technologies.
- A sustainable business model, better than our university club-to-club approach. Our content is now digitized and available in online courses with integrated industry projects in these target emerging technologies. This means easier access to anyone despite their location, an internet connection is just enough to jump onto the emerging tech bandwagon. Also, we have income-level inclusive payment plans that even support deferred payments (Pay after learning).
However, something we maintained is community. As much it is more virtual now, it is wider as it includes the broader emerging tech ecosystem. We also offer more value to this community as we establish links with employers who offer on-demand emerging tech jobs.
It has been a journey, and each and every single day we grow as we strive for higher impact and most definitely higher levels of emerging tech adoption, and resultantly aggressive innovation in emerging economies.
Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.” — Jacques Ellul
