Developers, academia, businesses, and governments across West Africa are unaware of the unlimited potential Cardano holds when it comes to solving local problems. The West African Decentralized Alliance (WADA) hopes is proposing an exciting project that aims to connect developers and entrepreneurs in the region to the Cardano ecosystem. By penetrating the West African market, Cardano will help improve societies by reducing corruption, improving property legislation, enhance supply chains and record keeping, streamlining transactions, and pushing more wealth across the population.
Huge Opportunities to Seize
Dubbed as the holy grail of blockchain opportunities, Africa has an extremely young population, making the continent an ideal prospect for digital developments. With a median age of under 20, there is a mobile-first population across West Africa and the rest of the continent. This has led to an explosive growth of mobile wallets and the mobile money economy. Additionally, entrepreneurs are constantly investing in the vibrant startup ecosystem in West African countries.
Despite these trends, the West African mobile market is plagued with high transaction costs, increased interest rates, and high fees in the micro-lending sectors. Coupling this with unstable currencies, cash flow manipulation, and other financing challenges, the region faces a host of challenges that can be resolved through blockchain technologies.
Several leaders across the blockchain space have recognized this potential and are capitalizing on available opportunities to market their enterprises. However, Cardano’s current strategy in the region is not sufficient to drive awareness on the power of its cutting-edge ecosystem. The long-term goal of this project is to work with local communities and eliminate barriers that hinder Cardano adoption.
Developers in the region are also limited in their ability to create solutions using blockchain technology. The WADA team hopes to accelerate the creation of dapps and attract new developers into the Cardano ecosystem, with a huge focus on solving local problems.
Our Low-hanging Fruit
The WADA team proposes a three-point strategy for improving Cardano’s intentions in Africa and bringing blockchain enterprise solutions to the region. These are:
- Creating a network of Cardano resource hubs for solutions design throughout West Africa
- Onboard and resource developers to enable solutions design using blockchain technology
- Work with governments, institution and local communities to identify and remove barriers to blockchain technology adoption
The Team
The proposing team comprises some brilliant minds with huge experience in software development, project management, marketing, community engagement, and leading non-profit work across West Africa.
The initiative is spearheaded by an implementation team, led by Josh, who has a wealth of experience in data analytics, project management and team leadership. Josh will serve as the global project team lead. At the top level, he will be partnering with a few other professionals in leading the project. These are:
- Afia– Serving as the Ghana team lead, she brings a wealth of experience in community engagement, project coordination, and team leadership to the WADA team
- Felicien, Cameroon team lead. He has professional experience working on high-profile IT projects for the government and agricultural sector.
- Jacob, design and stakepool lead – A passionate Cardano enthusiast who had been exploring the blockchain space for over 5 years. His specialties include graphic design and web development.
- Mercy, communication and coordination lead. Mercy has over 25 years experience in project management and engagement across Europe, North America, and West Africa.
In addition to this implementation team, the project will also have a volunteer advisory team that consists of experts in decentralized platforms and solutions, cryptocurrencies, and biodiversity management. If you’d like to learn more about the team or have a peek at their work, please visit their website at https://wadalliance.org/.
What’s the Roadmap?
The starting point for this project will be setting up local Cardano resource hubs for solutions design in Ghana, Cameroon, and other major cities in West Africa. This will help attract local developers and other bright minds that will subsequently contribute to blockchain related projects. For an even wider reach, the team has established a partnership with the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) to attract blockchain groups, alumni, and devs in West African universities. The proposers plan to make the most out of this developer talent tool by implementing well-crafted developer training and onboarding programs.
Besides accessing developer resources, the team also plans to work with stakeholders across the Cardano ecosystem to explore tokenization of natural resources and improve access to financial services. WADA also plans to establish blockchain education services in academic institutions and broaden opportunities for decentralized applications built on the Cardano protocol.
The implementation team for this project has well-outlined milestones to track their success over three years. You can have a look at these by checking the project milestones and performance metrics here.
Budget Proposal
The team behind this project seeks a total of $31,885 for an initial 3 three month period to entrench Cardano’s cutting-edge solutions across West Africa. Below is a high-level breakdown on how the team plans to utilize the requested funds.
For more information about the project budget breakdown and actual usage of funds, please have a look at the detailed WADA budget proposal.
Building a Common Vision to Transform Africa
A great strongpoint of the proposal by WADA is that it closely intertwines with other blockchain projects in the region. The team will hope to leverage the immense synergies within and outside the Cardano ecosystem by partnering with similar initiatives such as:
- BEN-Africa and other blockchains organizations driving adoption in West Africa
- ABCD, AfroFinLab, Liqwid Finance, GimbaLabs, and other emerging projects and innovations that are compatible with the Cardano ecosystem
- Input Output Global (IOG) work in East and Southern Africa
- Cardano Foundation and Community support
- Emurgo’s blockchain business development plans
- Ongoing development programs by local governments
- Poverty alleviation programs in Africa by international and local non-profit organizations.
The Future is Bright
This is a brilliant idea that helps West Africa leapfrog its way into the future by accelerating Cardano adoption. With Africa’s increasing technological adoption and the enormous potential of blockchain solutions, Cardano is headed for a boom. West Africa is already setting sight on decentralized technology; and incorporating Cardano in its plans ensures that the region is not left out in this fourth revolution fueled by digital transformation.
For more information about the WADA’s vision to transform West Africa by driving Cardano adoption, check out the project proposal on the link below.
https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/West-Africa-Decentralized-Alliance/333074-48088
