By Adedapo Adesanya
The Africa Blockchain Institute (ABI) has launched the Campus Blockchain Hackathon to give students from institutions of higher learning in Africa early exposure to the career and business opportunities being presented by the Blockchain/DLT Digital Innovations.
The Hackathon will create a structured and sustainable community that nurtures and empowers awesome developers by providing and democratising access to knowledge, capital and mentorship.
The contest seeks students from academic institutions of higher learning across Africa to build Blockchain Applications on Free TON that will add value to both the continent and the Free TON network.
FREE TON is as a community of the Open Source (OS) project that was created by the developers of the Telegram Open Network (TON). TON OS is designed as a decentralised operating system to handle decentralised applications.
TON OS has a stack of components which can be used by developers to create powerful applications. By making these components open source, anyone or everyone can view and copy fragments of the code.
Speaking on this, Mr Kayode Babarinde, Executive Director of ABI, said, “The African continent has this year become the new hotbed for peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies trading, as shown by the chain analysis crypto adoption index that places, for the first time, Nigeria and Kenya featuring in the top second and eight of global nations, respectively.
“This presents not only an opportunity, but a call for immediate action in grooming indigenous Blockchain ideation, deploying needed solutions, and driving practical adoption,” he said.
Also adding his input, Mr John Kanyiri, FreeTON Africa Representative and the FreeTON Africa Team, explained that the entry of FreeTON into the African continent is by no means an accident.
“Our governance model of a decentralized community-driven initiative resonates well with our African culture where community-driven activities is a norm.
“Transfer of knowledge to the juniors is also a role of the senior members of the community. For that reason, partnering with educational institutions, particularly ABI, in support of our University students is an honour.
“As the African continent endeavours to be part of global innovators and solution providers, FreeTON Africa is committed to engaging and mentoring the continent’s blockchain community today and beyond,” he said.
The Hackathon is planned to engage the academia on everything and anything they need to know about Blockchain technology.
Topics covered will not only give participants a good understanding of the Blockchain and how it works but will also discuss current and future applications and how they are being implemented to change the world profitably.
Some of these include: Fintech infrastructure/Digital Wallets (to help those who do not have access to banking); Human rights protections; Land ownership and registry; National voting platforms; High tech job creation; and participants are allowed to specify any other applications that best serve the needs of Africa).
The contest is divided into country competition, regional competition, then the continental competition. While the country and regional competitions are virtual, winners of regional competitions will receive an all-expense-paid trip to visit Rwanda for the finals.
The organisers noted that this is not open to only experts as newbies will work with some of the best technical experts in the blockchain community who will be there to help them build their projects.
The grand finale will be hosted at the African Leadership University, Kigali-Rwanda with the application opening today, December 21.
From January 4 – 21, 2021, there would be idea screening and award, while the application deadline has been fixed for January 22, 2021, with the hackathon dates slated for February 1, 2021, to April 8, 2021.
The hackathon program is in partnership with the Rwanda Information Society Authority (RISA); Ministry of ICT & Innovation, Republic of Rwanda; Government Blockchain Association – Africa; African Leadership University; and TON Labs.
Interested applicants can apply here at – https://africablockchain.institute/campus-hackathon/
Aduragbemi Omiyale