#LifeatMEST8 — Hey Si, I’m Making a Case For Bitcoin
Hiya, welcome to #LifeatMest, This episode is dedicated to Oluwasayo (Philip) Farotimi, a dear friend and seasoned Statistician & Graduate assistant at Georgia Southern University. This is a recorded conversation, I would have had with him if he was right here, hopefully, I get to convince him that bitcoin can solve some of Africa’s problems and that he would lend his intelligent mind to this industry.
Hello Si,
How are you doing?
How’s school going for you? what does learning feel like in a diverse university? do you find that you’re the only Nigerian among your colleagues or have we, Nigerians permeated Georgia Southern University as well?
Another friend just told me they’ve left the country, The mass departure of talents in Nigeria aka JAPA is crazy, thousands of young people are leaving the continent, as the west definitely looks more lucrative for building in technology
I know this is not the case for you, I know you are passionate about building & growing in Africa, I’m trying to make a convincing argument about bitcoin & blockchain, and maybe I’ll try to get you interested on this side of things
As you know, I’ve been at MEST for a couple of months now, this week has really been the most positive I’ve been about the continent. There’s so much throbbing potential Africa has, and I’m convinced this new technology, blockchain is the key accelerator in all sectors.
Understanding Bitcoin Rationalism with The Qala Team
EiTs at MEST, met with members of the @qalahq, Qala is seeking to train the next thousand bitcoin developers in Africa to achieve this instantaneous dream of having African developers actively contributing to the development of the bitcoin ecosystem is a big deal.
Think about it Si, Africa has always been seen as a “consumer” economy. even with our mass adoption of cryptocurrency, we add little to its actually building or its governance
Eric Hersman is the co-founder of iHub in Nairobi, Eric spoke about building. starting iHub 10 years ago, definitely, made him the frontrunner of Africa’s tech community. what does it feel like starting something,in an unfriendly environment, there’s so much we can learn from a community builder like Eric
Obi Nwosu, the founder of Fedimint, is a ferocious Bitcoin evangelist, he is building Fedi.xyz, a solution that would help developers scale on bitcoin. when I asked if he was he was a bitcoin maximalist, he said he was a bitcoin rationalist, and I get him, you know, I get the strong case he made of why bitcoin is the only solution that makes sense in the crypto sector
He thinks bitcoin is truly unique because;
first, bitcoin is truly decentralized
secondly, no one can make more of it
thirdly, it has stood the test of 13 years and still going strong as king of all coins
One of the best adoptions of bitcoin is what @bitcoinekasi is doing with machankura, It means Women making Shea Butter in Ghana, may just be able to cut through all the middlemen and actually get paid directly with BitcoinDo you know what that means they could be 10X times richer if the payment channel links directly to them.
Using USSD on their feature phone they can easily receive botcoin, from their sales. the main challenge is how do we encourage these women to see the value of bitcoin and what would they be able to exchange it for, we definitely need more shops and centers accepting bitcoin\how do these buyers, bg enfranchises get to know them there just a lot of work to do, but to only imagine the possibilities is Crazy is, crazy!
Meeting Jack Dorsey’s TBD Team
The next day, we got a surprise message that we would be getting more speakers from TBD. TBD is an open-source platform by Jack that seeks to enable developers to build decentralized platforms and allow users to own decentralized identity using web3 + web2 = web5
I don't understand the concept fully and its really something I would love to learn so hearing the team talk about it really made sense
Emily C Chu: Building a solution on the Blockchain
I spoke with her privately and she was really impressed about what we are doing with rubicon games, using game cards to educate people on how cryptocurrency works in fact she asked me to speak on video and I shared what the key problems in Nigeria were and how it can bitcoin can help
There's always this large hope that there would be a savior coming in, believing in my vision strongly enough to take us to the limelight, but what if that doesn't work, what if I never hear from her again, would i keep moving on, what if i get no funding, what if we fail, would i still be trying to solve this problem
Educating People on Cryptocurrency with The Mara Team
This was the most fun, firstly a friend from the bitcoin community spoke on the blockchain. I sat there, thrilled that she could really inculcate what I’d tried for weeks to explain to my friends. she did it so well
we argued a lot, a whole lot about the ability of blockchain to solve tangible problems in Africa, like helping farmers get more from international sales or helping international buyers track the data of crops from African farms
We also learned about smart contracts and how we use them to interact on the blockchain. so we launched our first smart contract, seeing the practicality of this really helped to dissuade growing doubts on blockchain
Foot Evangelism with Bitcoin for Fairness Team
I learned so much from all these conversations happening around bitcoin and blockchain, however, a few insights stood out, they hit me like a revelation, and I want to run out and shout in the same way Archimedes ran out naked when he discovered the buoyancy of water
- Innovation can only be created, not imagined
This is what Henry Ford meant when he said, people would ask for a better horse, not a car. technology cannot be imagined, You can not visualize a car when you've never seen one before. no one will see it happening, only the builders, and so it's okay if people can not“see” how blockchain would change the way we live
2. Solutions may not always follow a cause & effect linear model
What is the solution for traffic congestion in Lagos? building a wider road? or maybe asking people to work remotely.? we often see solutions as a linear resolution of the problem but sometimes it's not the case
when the founder of @mobi.8333 spoke he helped me understand, that's why it can be possible that bitcoin solves the problem of voting or bitcoin the problem of remittance
3. Find the hole before fixing the square
Many people have claimed that bitcoin is a solution for nothing. 😅 They may have a point if we are trying to fit bitcoin (a square peg) into every round hole. We have to figure out what the problem is, before trying to profer a solution. and yes, some potential problems we face as young builders in Africa are;
- trying to get paid in other countries
- being cut off from many grants and applications
- not being able to raise funds for our projects
- seeing our money depreciate every day
- finding it difficult to move money from Nigeria to Ghana or Nigeria to USA
So yes, There’s so much happening in the space and i keep thinking abouthow to incorporate intelligent minds like yours in this fact. what do you say about having a community of smart minds who can share insights, you know I always want to know your perspective on fresh ideaswhen you are done with studying statistics, would you come back to nigeria, i know you are deeply passionate about developing the country, and i want to try to transfer yu into working in this space, i know its a high ask, but then againm naybe ill be able to get you to contribute to the devlopment of bitcoin in Africa
one of the key challenges i have is figuring out what blockchain niche i should focus on and what ideas i should work on, there’s the problem of daily transfer, crowdfunding, international remitance, hidden identity, recording information like healthtech and voters count while keeping anonymity, there’s so much to learn Si, and even much more to build
I want to know from you, whaty do you think about all this and what advice would you give to me with all this you’ve heard. what are you particularly keen on? and what would you like to see being built.
You say we would most likely see in the 3 years, I hope its shorter. till then, lets keep connecting on whatsapp. your friend always…
Ozioma Onukogu
P.S: here are some resources you might want to check out
https://gist.github.com/Olanetsoft/5058fb382819f293d07076eeda777bitnob.com https://gist.GitHub.com/Olanetsoft/5058fb382819f293d07076eeda777b1ahttps://developers.circle.com/developer/docs/usdc-on-testnet\https://solidity-by-example.org/https://remix-project.org/
