Celo Foundation held its third Africa Web3 Fund workshop in Kampala, Uganda, on Tuesday, 8th November, 2022.
The Celo Africa Web3 Fund, which launched in early August, aims to help scale African startup projects building on Celo in support of blockchain technology and Web3 adoption.
There has been a batch of these particular workshops happening previously in Kenya, Nigeria and now Uganda, and the last event will be held in South Africa.
Over 20 startups and established companies in the community were in Attendance, ranging from big industry players e.g. Muda, Crypto Savannah, Binusu, Capital Savy, Yellow Card, Refactory, Kanzu Code,Spe Taxi Cab, Walimi and many others.
Umar Sebyala (Ugandan Ecosystem Lead)
Umar Sebyala, Ugandan Ecosystem Lead, took the lead by introducing the general audience to the Celo Ecosystem and exploring the Celo Africa Web3 Fund. This fund will be an ongoing support to the players who will decide to get involved with the Celo ecosystem. The fund will include support in different dimensions i.e developers, educators, VCs and mentors to help startups scale.
This will also include workshops, office hours, deal rooms where one pitches their idea, or shares a deck, gets insights from the Team and investors, and if the criteria is met, the project proceeds to the next steps.
Umar also discussed the opportunities of leveraging blockchain technology and bringing DeFi solutions to the African ecosystem and how the founders and startups can utilize the Celo ecosystem to provide solutions to the community’s existing problems.
Umar shared a quick demo on the Celo Reserve exploring different celo assets i.e. CUSD, CEUR and presented the potential of different use cases ranging from mobile crypto usability, community Finance, Defi, Refi, NFTs, UBI and financial inclusion, Regenerative Economics etc.
Daniel Kimotho – Celo Kenya Ecosystem Lead
Daniel Kimotho kickstarted the discussion and shared insights on how the fund will help startups scale if they utilize and build using blockchain technology to solve the current existing problems in the community to achieve financial freedom and inclusion.
According to Kimotho, the fund also will provide support to developers by giving them access to mentors and investors on a continuous basis.
Peter Kakoma of Kanzu Code shared insights about what Kanzu Code has been doing over the past years by providing digital solutions to the local market. Kanzu Code ofers various technology services i.e. custom digital solutions in form of software and integrations, Banking systems solutions, and inclusive financial tools development.
According to Brain Tweheyo of Crypto Savanna and Binusu, crypto related transactions have evolved over the past years and how his company Binusu is bridging a gap of accessing crypto in the community through building on and off ramp solutions in Uganda.
Brian also shared that Binusu is democratizing access to financial services and crypto markets by creating easy to use products that enable everyone to borrow, lend, save, invest, and exchange value. Binusu has been in operations for 4 years and provides crypto assets including Celo and Celo stable Coins.
Elias Ezron – Cash Out
Elias Ezron is one of the few crypto startup founders in Uganda. He is building CashOut, a fast instant cashing out system for crypto. It is an API product enabling multiple exchanges or wallets to offer withdrawal of crypto to fiat currency. His solution is being utilized by companies in the remittance space, UBI among others.
Ezron aims to eliminate high transaction fees by utilizing blockchain technology.
Jovan Mwesigwa – Shukuru Crypto
One of the other exciting speakers was Jovan Mwesigwa of Shukuru Crypto, a wallet solving complexity of transactions in the crypto industry by targeting the communities that have found it hard to transition to use of smartphone technology.
Shukuru Crypto is transforming and changing the whole aspect of sending and receiving crypto in communities that are less privileged in the form of internet accessibility and ownership of smartphones. They are building a solution of accessing crypto by sending, receiving, deposit and wallet creation using USSD.
Ernest – Devrel, Celo
The last session of the presenters was led by Ernest, presenting about the Celo Composer and Celo Sage.
Celo Composer is a starter pack built on the React-Celo toolkit that helps developers to quickly develop full stack applications on the Celo Blockchain. The celo composer helps you navigate your way in building Defi applications and eases bring brilliant and amazing ideas to life.
Celo Sage is a community driven program where the community creates content like articles, tutorials and videos to help developers onboard onto the Celo Ecosystem.
The Celo Sage aims at solving hardships in onboarding web2 developers/web3 beginners to the Celo ecosystem.
Panel Discussions
From Left to Right: Daniel Kimotho, Kenyan Ecosystem Lead, Noah Baalessanvu, Crypto Savannah, Sulaiman Mulunda, Muda, Reginald Tumusiime, Capital Savy
