Recap: Our time at the Ghana Blockchain Community Conference
Why building up the blockchain community in Ghana is so important.
You may already know that Ghana is the first country to gain independence in Sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps, what you may not know is that Ghana continues to gain recognition as one of Africa’s leading tech innovation hubs.
Looking back at our recent travels to Ghana, it all started with a purpose; to educate and inspire the local blockchain community.
Ghana, the Innovation Hub
There is a new generation of tech innovators, enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs in Ghana that are using technology to their advantage. The community is surrounded by strong networks of tech support hubs and Universities such as Mest Accra, an incubator for African tech startups, and iSpace Foundation, a co-working space offering tools and facilities for entrepreneurs and startups to launch and manage their business ideas.
With more and more African countries gaining an interest in emerging technologies, we’ve seen a number of blockchain events recently take place in Ghana. People from across the world are coming to the country to attend events like the Ghana Blockchain conference and the Blockchain Summit that occurs in Accra.
The importance of building and educating a blockchain community
At Linum Labs, we define a community as a diverse group of individuals with interests and knowledge on emerging technologies who are either in the blockchain space, want to be a part of it or could potentially benefit from the technology. Through community events and collaboration, these individuals share their ideas, information, and other resources to make a positive impact in their respective fields.
In Ghana, our aim is to build and expand the community so that it can thrive in any environment, where power is not concentrated. In order to achieve greater awareness and global implementation of blockchain applications, there needs to be more individuals and companies investing time into educating and upskilling the local community.
Blockchain Community Conference in Ghana
After months of planning, we were able to host our first ever Blockchain Community Conference in Ghana. A big thanks to our friends at Mofiamo, who kindly lent their venue, and Stratum CoinBr, who sponsored the event.
What we aimed to achieve by hosting this event:
- To raise awareness on blockchain technology by creating an open platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- To make the resources and technology more accessible to communities who are passionate about emerging technology.
- To connect innovators, technologists, developers, enthusiasts and like-minded individuals who share the same passion for blockchain technology.
- To inspire community members to improve existing systems to create a better world using blockchain technology.
- To empower and educate individuals with a good understanding of the blockchain and how it works.
- To deliver insightful and informative presentations from a number of blockchain startups and industry experts.
- To give startups a platform to showcase their business and ideas.
- To create an open platform for people to learn, network and collaborate with members of the local blockchain community.
“There are two sides to why bringing blockchain technology to the local Ghana community is important. The one is to put Africa at the forefront of innovation in this emerging technology, growing the number of jobs, increasing skills and of course boosting the economy. The other is the potential to use the technology to build Ghana itself, and potentially solve a lot of current issues across a multitude of industries and different use cases. It is inevitable that Blockchain will reach maturity where it successfully and easily solves current issues and creates new business models and ways of doing things — the world of tomorrow is closer than we think.” — Oz Razak
Blockchain Startups in Ghana
Highlighting local entrepreneurs at our Community Conference:
BenBenland
BenBenland is one of the startups taking over the land administration landscape in Accra. The company, a digital lands transaction platform, aims to bring Ghana to the forefront of land investment and GovTech innovation, serving as a model use-case for the rest of the world.
MinoHealth
In the healthcare space, minoHealth aims to create a patient centred and value-based healthcare service with the objective of democratising quality healthcare with innovative and cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, data science, blockchain and cloud computing in Africa.
“With blockchain, we can have evidence-based, patient-centered healthcare using smart contracts.”- Darlington Ahiale (Founder, Director of minoHealth AI Labs)
GiveDirect
Current financial systems and poverty are among Ghana’s major challenges. GiveDirect aims to build a blockchain direct giving solution to end global extreme poverty by providing basic income while operating within a highly secure peer-to-peer network with 100% transparency.
KuBitX
When it comes to Cryptocurrencies, KuBitX is the world’s fastest global hybrid digital currency exchange, focusing on blockchain adoption in emerging markets in Africa. The platform was designed to embrace the idea of simplicity and accessibility, empowering and educating people from all walks of life to embrace the technological revolution of blockchain.
Gr8Mind$@W0rk group
The Gr8Mind$@W0rk group seeks to sensitise the public on emerging technologies that define the future of money, as both a store of value and as a transactional instrument. The company believes that blockchain technology brings opportunities to rethink how we can remove trust and obtain digital proof of the existence of a particular transaction. The Gr8Mind$@W0rk group trains people for free every Saturday on the basics of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
“If we want to implement blockchain technology to its fullest extent we need to fix the problem of identity management and all other things will fall into place. “- Tony Klah ( CEO of gr8minds@work)
Community Thoughts
Over the past several years blockchain technology has gradually gained interest and acceptance in Ghana. Currently, there is an eagerness from local community members to learn more about the technology as they believe it has the potential to change their lives.
Before anyone can adopt any sort of new technology and see the potential impact of blockchain, they need to learn how it operates. Industry players need to unite and collaborate in order to grow the blockchain community as things are rapidly changing in the space every single day.
Community building is one of our biggest core pillars at Linum Labs and it is essential that we work together in generating more value through growing a global peer-to-peer network of blockchain enthusiasts and we need your help to do just that!
We are actively looking for any existing communities and other individuals, such as sponsors and ambassadors, that would like to collaborate with us. You can apply via this form.
Whether you reside in Ghana or if you ever find yourself traveling there, please join our Ethereum Meetup Ghana group to connect and learn from local blockchain leaders.
We aim to expand our reach in Africa and will continue to collaborate with more blockchain startups, individuals and big companies that share the vision of educating and upskilling the community. Expect more meetups alongside industry experts that will create a platform for collaboration and peer-to-peer learning.
This is just the beginning.
