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Report from the African Fintech Summit Addis Ababa, November 2019
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| Report by {Akin Sawyerr} | |
| #### Info: | |
| * dates: {November 21 2019 (1 day)} | |
| * location: {(Sheraton Addis Ababa), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia} | |
| * event website: {https://africafintechsummit.com/addis/} | |
| * event brochure: {https://africafintechsummit.com/addis/download-brochure-form/} | |
| * Twitter: {https://twitter.com/AfriFintech} | |
| * visitors: {350+} | |
| #### Decred presence: | |
| * attendees: {@akinsawyerr} | |
| #### Swag: | |
| * {N/A} | |
| ## Overview | |
| The African Fintech Summit is a bi-annual event that held in Washington DC in April and in an African city in November. This was the 4th in the series of events which have been preiously held in Washington DC and Lagos Nigeria. | |
| The event was well attended by over 60 speakers and 350 guests from around the world, with the majority from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, USA, DRC, England, Sweden and Uganda. The Summit was kicked off by H.E. Dr. Getahun Mekuria the Ethiopian Minister of Innovation and Technology. | |
| ## Details | |
| As Africa’s fastest growing economy and the continent’s second most populous country, Ethiopia is at the precipice of unprecedented change. Thanks to extensive infrastructure investments across the last two decades, an ambitious structural reform agenda, and imminent liberalization of the telecom and finance sectors, Ethiopia presents unparalleled opportunities for fintech. | |
| The Summit was a gathering of disruptors, tech and finance professionals, regulators, and investors from across Africa to Addis Ababa which is often called Africa’s political capital as its the permamnent location of the African Union and the homebase of the United Nations in Africa. | |
| ### Expectations and Goals | |
| This was the first event I have attended in Africa since I joined the Decred as a contractor. I was partticularly keen on the event because I anticipated that it would attract a wide swath of attendants from Africa and Europe that were curious about Ethiopia, a country that has been historically closed of to outside investors, but has recently made substative reforms to open up its country and markets to the rest of the world. | |
| I thought it would be a great opporunity to not only get a feel for Ethiopia's position on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, but also a great place to meet progressive Africans who were aligned with the values of Decred and buidling solutions that could present opportunties for collaboration with Decred or other entities in the Decred ecosystem. My hope was to leave Addis with a handful of new connections that could bloosom into valueable long term relationships that would benefit Decred. | |
| ### Outcomes | |
| The event turned out to exceed my expectations. I want to share information on two of the top connections I made and why I think they could be valuable. Its my hope that this would give the community some sense of where I am beginning to see opportunities for Decred to engage, and provide some background and context in support. | |
| #### [Anthony Kiplimo, Nairobi, Kenya](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-kiplimo-0234384b/), Head of Developer Relations at [Africa's Talking](https://africastalking.com/) and VP of Ecosystems at DecodEd Africa | |
| Anthony has roles in two organizations of import to Decred, I connected with him during an informal break-out session on Payments and API's which quickly turned to a Masterclass on Decred, Blockchain, and Why Cryptocurrency might just save us all (I could not help myself). | |
| [Africa's Talking](https://africastalking.com/) is one of the preeminnet platforms Fintech companies use across Africa. Through APIs they provide access to telco infrastructure, developers build on their SMS, USSD, Voice, Airtime and Payments APIs to bring their products to market. | |
| The vast majority of non-bank (and some bank) financial apps rely on aggregator platforms like Africa's talking to get to market. | |
| Anthony also has a leadership role with DecodEd Africa which is a network of over 1.5 million developers acoss Africa. DecodEd is a related entity of Africa's Talking that helps developers learn, build and ship scalable software. They provide subsidized mentorship, training, and job/project placement services to developers who they train to use and leverage Africa's talking's platform. | |
| People like Anthony give me a lot of optimism about the potential that exists in Africa for Decred. A big priority for me is engaging with people and organizations that sit in a position where they have a wide perspective on key markets like payments and fintech, but also have deep insights into the talent and organizations building innovative tech solutions. Africa's talking hosts some of the most successful fintech companies in Africa including Jumo, Tala, and Branch, and has offices in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Gambia and Cote d'Ivoire. | |
| I think there is a wide open opportuity for Decred to explore integration partnerships with companies like Africa's talking when the timing is right. I think there is a potential for Decred to be an enabler of cryto and blockchain based product adoption through integrations with platforms that companies already build on. | |
| Collaborations with entities like Africa's talking would give us insights into the pulse of the broader market and deep understanding of the problems that exist and organizations looking to solve them. It would be cool for example to be able to to embedd Decred LN payments into proprietary apps across a wide range of companies that already have distribution and market reach. | |
| #### [Gisele Mwepu, Stockholm, Sweden](https://www.linkedin.com/in/giselemwepu/), CEO [Okapi Finance International AB](https://www.okapifinance.com/) | |
| Gisele runs is originally from the DRC, works in over 8 African markts, and operates Okapi from her homebase in Stockholm Sweden. Okapi is an integrated payment platform that works with finanicial intermediaries to provide financial services to the unbaked which prepresents 80% of the African population. | |
| Through desktop, mobile apps, and agent networks Okapi lets individuals and businesses: | |
| - Send and receive digital payments | |
| - Pay invoices and bills online and at points of sale | |
| - Deposit and withdraw funds between the Okapi wallet and bank accounts | |
| - Buy business insurance coverage | |
| - Disburse salaries, loans, pension payouts etc | |
| Okapi provides these servcies through a PCI DSS cetified platform and has been recognized by governments and development funding institutions for its work to bring financial inclusion to cross-border traders that are often vulnerable to extortion and theft. | |
| I am particularly keen on exploring opportunities to work with Oakpi because: | |
| - It is completly focused on unbanked and underbanked populations that go largely ignored relative to solutions targetting the middle class, | |
| - Its built on a platform thats fully regulatory compliant with European rules and regulations which makes it an attractive partner to financial services institutions across Africa who can leverage them with peace of mind. | |
| - Gisel is a tough CEO who has managed to enter 8 African markets and earn the respect and support of a number of OG Nigerian bankers that I know, who she worked with to establish a beach head in Nigeria. | |
| - Its established as an european company which should make it much easier for Decred to partner with should it make sense. | |
| ## Next Steps | |
| I plan to follow-up with a number of the key contacts I made in Ethiopia over the next few weeks and months. I think building relationships and awarness with key entrepreneurs and organizations acorss Africa would be an efficient way to plug into ecosystems, and contiunally iterate on a starategy and approach. | |
| #### Photos: | |
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| } |
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