Meet Our Platinum Partner: Mara X Circle
I attended the Web 3 Roadshow this past weekend at the Movenpick hotel in Nairobi by Mara in partnership with Circle. It was amazing to see such a turn-up of web 3 developers and enthusiasts in Kenya! Interestingly, someone dared to ask a question I was too shy to ask, or instead assumed to be quite obvious, you know? They wanted to know, why Mara? Well, I was not wildly off the tangent in my thinking. Mara means ‘tribe’ and is also synonymous with the Maasai Mara Game Reserve here in Kenya, where the wildebeest migration occurs each year. Blockchain is ‘digital wildlife,’ a bubble people don’t understand much about. One of Mara’s key objectives is to see that Blockchain is demystified, democratized and its potential leveraged to the core across the continent. In a sense, Mara aims to build an African tribe.
The Mara Foundation
We cannot mention the roadshow or the Hackathon without talking about the Mara Foundation, which is the reason why this partnership with GDG Nairobi is happening.
The Mara Foundation empowers African developers to transition from Web2 to Web3. In 5 years, the Foundation has the vision to train 1 million developers to impact 1 billion lives. Bold and audacious goals, I must say. In our chats with Alli, Developer Relations Engineer at Mara, while planning for the Roadshow, he insisted that they would not wish to see Africa slacking in the uptake of Blockchain, as is always the case whenever new technology is out.
The Foundation champions financial inclusion for Africans and builds capacity around the same at different strata of the ecosystem from the grassroots to governments and beyond.
To encourage innovation, the Mara Foundation enhances capacity building not just for developers but also the end-users. Moreover, the Foundation seeks to provide visibility and resources to developers to encourage them to build solutions that society can consume. This includes Circle’s API.
Circle
A circle is defined as a symbol consisting of a center and a collection of points with equal distance from the center to all the edges.
True to its name, Circle is changing how money moves by making it more inclusive, accessible, and efficient, increasing economic opportunity and prosperity worldwide.
Build with Web3 Services
With Circle, you can access a suite of Web3 development tools designed to offload blockchain infrastructure costs, mitigate security risks and remove operational complexities.
The bread and butter of Circle for developers are that whether you are unfamiliar or familiar with Web3, they have composable APIs and turnkey SDKs that help you build at scale.
To use the API, you need to first apply for a Circle account to issue payouts to your customers, vendors, or suppliers in the following ways:
- Wires
- ACH
- SEPA (Beta)
- On-chain USDC transfers
Mara X Circle
Mara and Circle have a partnership to provide developers in Africa with tools and access to build dApps and blockchain solutions. Through the partnership, they are holding roadshows across Kenya and Nigeria to engage with Web3 developers. The goal of the roadshow is to raise awareness about what the partnership means for the Web3 ecosystem on the continent.
Mara and Circle will hold masterclasses/workshops, hackathons and introduce Campus ambassador programs, among other activities across Africa. Both partners have a developer-first mindset that strives to empower developers to transform the socioeconomic of the African continent.
We are honored to have had Circle and Mara as sponsors for this year’s DevFest Nairobi, which was held at USIU (United States International University Africa) on November 5th.
Learn more about Circle and Mara
Daisy Okacha and Velda Kiara wrote this article.
