The future of crypto is in Africa
i’m called michael chiberu nagender
i run multiple it
startup uh tech initiatives
in africa that is uganda mainly that’s
where we started with chip here
nigeria rwanda
and i’m glad to share with you about my
work
in the different spaces my topic is
the future of the future of crypto
is in africa i want to break it down a
bit
when we talk about crypto
for me i’ve been working for top
organizations
in germany deutsche bank lidl
sixth in switzerland also american
corporations when it comes to
big data and
every time i walk through those
organizations i’m just standing amazed
looking at technology looking at what
impact what transformational impact
it does to different organizations um
we have seen different challenges in
different organizations
uh when i’m at deutsche bank it’s partly
security
other areas i can’t talk much about
in the financial industry where i
entered quite strong in the last few
years
i’m amazed to see
how technology is transforming
the industry i’m standing amazed
when i’m in africa looking at
the third revolution where we went from
steam
analog to digital i see the potential
of transformation different technologies
we have today at hand
can do when we look at
the fourth industrial revolution
i call it transformation because
revolution
sometimes comes with blood and power
change and i like to actually say
transformation the transformational
power we have in
the third and the fourth industrial
revolution
amazes me let’s talk a little bit about
it
in the fourth i’m jumping a bit the
third but the third we have the internet
it’s not more than 100 years old we all
use it
day by day we have
different uh shift from mechanical
basically to electronic digital
especially um we have the innovation of
the internet inventing of the internet
that’s just 1989
2005 and the internet would look very
ugly in the beginning it was just a page
and even updating it
was i don’t want to look back to it i’ve
seen it
as i said in the third industrial
revolution
uh we moved from mechanic and analog to
digital
in the fourth transformation uh with
digital
big data ais artificial intelligence
intern of things machine to machine
these are all keywords maybe
not ringing bells immediately but
imagine
a covet locked down without your
whatsapp without your youtube
without your netflix and so many other
things that actually
allowed us not to get mad it couldn’t
help us maybe much to not
add kilos i added but
at least you can imagine what it would
mean
without those technologies at hand but
the underlying technology is
powering those and i had the chance and
the luck
to see some of them in different
culprits i’m in
but where are we in africa let’s talk
about africa
today we talk about the global village
it’s not anymore
i’m coming from the mutamba huh i’m just
a ugandan
huh raised here i left actually
after i think 10 i was in germany but
our global village it’s not anymore just
the local village
interconnected but not just that
we have certain cultures we have some
certain understandings which is
different from
maybe other continents not just the
village not just the country
but we’re talking even in bigger
contexts of africa
as a whole so in the digi in our in our
village let me call it there’s some
different understanding
that we have and i want to
jump to now crypto more uh looking at
that time
um while i want you to have that picture
of decentralization you know in the
village
one by his land everyone knows this is
the owner of the land
the knowledge not in one head it is in
different heads
in the village we don’t raise a child
just by the mother and the father
not in our african context we raise
actually
our children as a village they can walk
to their grandma
they can go to their uncle actually the
children call everyone uncle
and auntie sometimes with our background
with europe we say ah well
it’s a challenge our children think
everyone is anti
but indeed we have that respect it is
different
and from that context i want to talk
about crypto
crypto has made a lot of changes and it
started all with bitcoin about 12 years
ago
is when it was born and with bitcoin
different looks different comments
different understanding went through
their heads
one was oh it’s all only for criminals
the others did not understand anything
at all
the other one called it a scam the other
one called it
will just a child born will die
it’s now 12 years over 12 years
in the industry and a total game changer
that’s what i want to talk about a total
game changer
only years later we actually learned
what really bitcoin is
in the beginning understanding was not
there
the underlying technology on bitcoin
which we only understood later is
blockchain
blockchain is more or less a registry
book
okay peer-to-peer distributed
cryptographically secured append only
immutable means extremely hard
to change and it can only be updated
when there’s a consensus
what does that mean there’s a lot of
keywords
we actually teach every second week i’m
teaching about blockchain cryptocurrency
trading
and staking and i can’t do it all at
once here
but i want to get you interested
blockchain is currently the number one
industry in the whole world
in the whole world i’m a cyber security
professional
but my interest shifted a lot to
blockchain
it is a combination of different
technologies when
appear to appear machine talking to a
machine
removing middleman distributed all over
you kill one they still find a way to
operate
you can’t stop it at least very hard
when we talk about immutable one time
you’re written in it can be removed
imagine your birth certificate could
move could be changed any other time not
with blockchain
once it’s written it is written i can
only
update when we talk about consensus
that’s when i
come back to our african village
when the land is transformed to someone
else there’s an agreement
a consensus amongst at least
two people at least but usually
more than that the internet
enables exchange of information
blockchain allows the exchange
of value the internet
i write my wife wherever she is
i update her where i’m going my shopping
list is sent by her when i go shopping
my whatsapp my what my what information
exchange information
but i can’t really before at least
exchange value and
share it like an sms with someone else
that’s what the blockchain enabled
more than that blockchain is a trust
machine
what does that mean i told you once it’s
written it’s written
there’s a consensus you can’t change it
when i write it here in uganda it is
almost automatically written in china
at the same time and that’s why i’m
standing amazed
because i was working for example for
legal in europe at the headquarter
leaders like walmart or shoprite just a
bit bigger than that
and the challenge they had was to write
the store of
all the products in the one
store and have it synchronized to the
headquarter to know what to buy or sell
the next day what is overstock what is
where it’s talked what needs to be done
i mean there’s so many decisions that
have to be done
so they have huge databases by then they
were like the biggest
the biggest uh user of oracle which is a
database
with blockchain i when i look at the
industry the technology and i see what
blockchain brings
i’m just standing amazing i want you
also to be interested in this
because it’s not just a technology it is
a
transformational technology if we look
at self-driving cars they have data if
you look at university they have data
everywhere is data
we have to save it somewhere we have to
manage it somewhere
not only that um
in europe they spoke a long time i think
london was one of the countries that
really pushed it
into open banking that means you have
your app here
you make a transaction to someone else
and it just goes nicely through your app
wasn’t possible before because the banks
want the customer data the banks want
all the data and the owner
open bank and say hey guys allow the
fintech guys at least to access data
fintech is financial technology
which my company is in allow them to
access the data so they can do maybe
some more smarter things we need to
transform that area too
while they’re still talking about it
blockchain
with decentralized finance
brought it already in action you can
basically take your
100 naira 100 ugandan shillings 50
whatever
put them on a system and the system will
manage your money automatically can you
imagine that
for me i stand amazed when i look at it
we call it also staking i’m just giving
some keywords taking
a few days ago i bought one of the
um new tokens we call them tokens
not just bitcoin bitcoin it’s a token we
call it cryptocurrency not every token
is a
cryptocurrency so i bought one of the
tokens and i staked it
and it pays me back about yearly returns
about 300
a bank gives you about 0.75 percent
and then you’re still lucky so your
money you put on the bank doesn’t work
for you blockchain
blockchain enable applications do it
lending is one of the technology
decentralized
finance allows you can basically go on
the system
powered by blockchain and lend money do
you
do your business you should definitely
also do the payback
so in our work what we have done we
basically train about five
let me see about two thousand years
every year because i believe
that if we don’t take the youth on this
journey
we’re losing out we had
i mean how what called him what
international universities you
started even was an exodus because
they’re learning what they cannot use in
the market
you need to learn what is usable and
important in the market
we company owners ceos etc we know what
we need in the
industry so we train the youth
every year we train over about 2000 news
we have different programs for that as i
mentioned every two weeks
we’re training them on webinars through
the coverage but we’re coming back
to physical very soon we’re building
currently actually
a location for excellence i.t
blockchain cyber security ai
it’s still in the making
why to transform africa
we have to do things different the truth
of yesterday cannot solve the problems
and the challenges of today or tomorrow
so i want to get you interested
to learn about technology but
specifically
blockchain cryptocurrency tokens
decentralized finance and much more than
that
i’m available currently in uganda i’ve
been in nigeria for some time
it’s a building also there when the west
and the east
i’ll be happy to take you on a journey
to understand what
this technology enables you to do
it is transforming every industry
in the world you know a plane is built i
don’t know about how many billion pieces
bill millions maybe not billions by
millions of pieces
they have to be monitored where are they
to be ordered
you put them in a database to make sure
when they arrive there we know they have
arrived there we’re missing this piece
we get the quality is not good here we
record it
etc that’s a supply chain and they’re
becoming more
and more complicated today when you
order on amazon a book it is gonna be
printed
that is printing on demand it is
delivered
very highly complex systems behind it
even a machine is there to pick the book
and put it in the box
to ship it to you now we’re buying now
we’re building drones
why are using the roads and traffic and
all that drama
why not use a drone flight over air
deliver straight at your host
house door that is where it is going
but all that smartness data exchange
is utilizing digital money i’m working
with different governments we’re talking
to different ones
to actually look into removing this
this cash we have and put it into
digital rwanda is working on a digital
one and frank
uganda has some pro uh some some
developments
or at least conversations that europe is
bringing out their own
we have created the biggest trading zone
in africa
but how are we enhancing the technology
to allow us to do it
in a transformational way in a way that
africa benefits from it yes i hear it
all the time we are poor we don’t have
this
we have potential our youth
is our potential our resources
is our potential but we need to do
what it takes to get there
so i always say that if you don’t move
you’ll be moved if you still think
living in a cave is the best you
are missing out so we need to move we
need to change our mindset we need to
accept the changes we need to
do that extra action to actually
be part of it so i want to end here
and i want some ending to amaze you
to make you interested to be
part of this transformational
shift that technology allows
you can open a youtube and learn about
it
there’s been events here at this very
location
so this we have such simple access today
to knowledge
i don’t know where we ever had it so i
want to amaze you and get you interested
for it thank you very much