Qala Africa for the development of bitcoin
“Bitcoin for Africa, by Africans” was the main theme of the Qala Bitcoin developer outside the site held earlier this month in Lagos, Nigeria. And that topic, as well as the event itself, talked about one of the continent’s greatest opportunities today, as well as Qala’s major mission and how it is already succeeding.
Increasing opportunities among pervasive challenges
It is important to know that the growing use of Bitcoin in African countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, South Africa and the Central African Republic is linked to the intensive Bitcoin education programs organized by Bitcoin-focused companies and stakeholders in these jurisdictions, such as Qala , a program designed to train developers of African Bitcoin and Lightning Network.
Source: Author
Unlike a few years ago, when Africa as a continent had always been meant to drag its feet when it came to adopting and being acquitted of technologies for the fourth industrial revolution, the story changes positively today as it becomes apparent that Africa offers the best uses for Bitcoin as an innovation.
For example, a recent report from Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform, showed that between July 2020 and June 2021, Africans received $ 105.6 billion in bitcoin and cryptocurrency payments – with Africa’s cryptocurrency market growing by 1200% from the previous year. In Africa, the usefulness of Bitcoin is not limited to building generational wealth alone, but it goes across features such as enabling cross-border money transfers, helping resist inflation, and serving as a tool for social justice, among other things.
Abukakar Nur Khalil, a Bitcoin Core contributor, has highlighted the need to leverage Bitcoin infrastructure and layered frameworks to build products focused on creating real-time solutions and addressing issues specific to different regions of Africa. There are various Western exchange platforms and products that offer peer-to-peer Bitcoin services in Africa, but not surprisingly, these products are not developed and built specifically for Africans.
How Qala helps African Bitcoin developers
At the Qala event in Lagos, Nigerian entrepreneur Femi Lounge so, «Traditionally, African countries are consumers of products built outside the continent. In this room we are no longer consumers, we are producers. Bitcoin is the tool we build with. “
Source: Author
The Bitcoin developer-focused collection featured plebs, sponsors, speakers and representatives from almost all Bitcoin-focused startups in Africa and beyond, such as Carla Kirk-Cohenboard member of Btrust; Tim Akinbo, a longtime Bitcoiner and open source enthusiast; Adam Jonas, core member of Chaincode Labs; Benard Parah, CEO of Bitnob; Caralie Chrisco, content manager at Hello Bitcoin; Share Joseph, logistics manager at DigiOats; Oluwasegun Kosemani, CEO of BotMeCash; Nur Khalil; Femi Lounge, co-founder of Co-Creation Hub; and Qala Program Director, Victor Asemota; together with support from Built with Bitcoin Foundationamong others.
The event made it clear that Africans live to change the world and truly believe that Bitcoin will track this process. But it also acknowledged that the challenges remain.
Seeing these challenges as an opportunity to build, train and enable productivity in the African Bitcoin ecosystem has fueled the structure and initiative around Qala Africa. Eight months ago, Qala took in 12 Africans (Bamidele Oluwatobi, Collin Rukundo, Enigbe Ochekliye, Theophilus Isah, Olutobi Adeyemi, Peter Tyonum, Raphael Osaze Eyerin, Vladimir Fomene, Munirat Olayiwola, Oladimeji Omotosho, Ommi Ezeyob them to become builders on Bitcoin’s other layers and test protocols such as Lightning, Bitcoin’s test network and other frameworks, instead of just remaining consumers and users of Bitcoin services.
Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob which is also one of the six organizers of the program twitret his excitement after three (Ochekliye, Isah and Tyonum) of the 12 candidates became competent Bitcoin and Lightning Network developers and product builders, and found full-time roles with Galoy.io, a payment solution platform that offers lightning as a retail payment system.
Based on this development, Qala promises to keep up with this feat by bringing in more developers interested in building with Bitcoin.
This is a guest post by Heritage Falodun. Expressed opinions are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
