[PASSED] BIP-13 BitDAO x AfricaDAO: Accelerating Web3 Adoption Across The Fastest Growing Continent

Where do you come up with these statistics? Have you been to Africa before? When I visited in the early 2010s and lived in a village, Many people had some sort of cell phone which also had data plans. Why would people buy mobile devices without being able to use them for connections? Many people in Africa actually have multiple cell phones, it’s a status symbol for many people. AfricaDAO won’t be solving every problem but I think they will focus specifically on how to educate people about the opportunities in web3 as well as ways to protect against currencies that will inflate and lose value over the long term.

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Thank you for the question Don.


Sources: Counterpoint Market Monitor Service, Transsion Group financial statements

Without a doubt Africa is the region with the most political instability amongst any emerging markets. The average African country is 2-10x higher in inflation than other countries in the world [1]. The region has seen an increase in 3x venture funding over the past year [2] with a 12x increase in crypto adoption [3], these stats prove that Africa will be the next continent to be on the radar for in terms of massive growth potential.

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Source: Counterpoint Research – Market Monitor Service

Public companies such as African well known unicorn mobile brand Transsion have proven Africa can have massive growth potential. Transsion did around $6.8bn in revenue selling 184m phone sets, and 85% (5.8bn) was from smartphones [4]. Because Transsion is a publicly listed co, the amount of smartphones sold gives a good idea of around where we stand in terms of mobile penetration given that Transsion stands for almost 45% of African mobile market share.

The companies AfricaDAO will be empowering will be helping the region leapfrog past legacy gatekeepers in our opinion. Using web3 and cryptocurrency to circumvent middlemen and inefficiencies in the old traditional systems.

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[1]African countries and their inflation rates in 2022
[2]Tick... Tick... Boom! Q1 results are in. - by Max Cuvellier
[3]P2P Platforms, Remittances, and Savings Needs Power Africa’s Grassroots Cryptocurrency Adoption - Chainalysis
[4] Transsion Updates Q3 2022: Revenue Stays Resilient, But Profit Declines

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Very thoughtful and exciting proposal with exceptional people involved. Africa could certainly be poised for exponential growth over the next decade. Most African countries are in a position to benefit greatly from web3 tech and infrastructure for obvious reasons – wealth preservation, remittance issues, banking the unbanked, access to financing and yield opportunities, etc so this feels like a great place to make web3 investments, but Africa is fairly diverse with lots of different cultures, laws, and governments. I did see that @jambojames mentioned growing up in the DRC. Curious to know if those involved have connections and experience working with multiple African countries and governments?

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Great initiative to support and more conviction on Africa and AfricaDAO after reading through this blog post (Next Continent for 10x Crypto Adoption: Africa | by Jambo Technology | Jambo Technology | Jul, 2022 | Medium)!

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This is a great initiative. I am based in South Africa so well aware of what Crypto can do for Africa. Many Africans dont even have access to a local bank account, however they are able to gain access to a mobile phone. Crypto & the Blockchain facilitates freedom and giving the power to the people. Big thumbs up, yes, HUGE opportunities for Africa.

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@coldPlunger

My sources are the International Telecommunications Union, World Economic Forum and International Finance Corporation.

Perhaps you have answered your third question in the continuation of your own text. I’m not making assumptions, just quoting the facts. I have lived in Brazil for 30 years, it is a country with continental proportions, my experience is limited and I dare not say that I know it better than data and statistics – The same with Africa which is literally a continent.

Acceleration and mass adoption projects that do not deeply observe local and infrastructure aspects are discontinued and can be fatal to the growth of the scenario. That’s why I asked these questions.

[1] • Africa: total population forecast 2020-2050 | Statista
[2] Bringing Africa Up to High Speed.
[3] Africa's population growth will triple by 2050 | World Economic Forum
[4] Brasil tem mais smartphones que habitantes, aponta FGV | CNN Brasil

@JamboAlice

Yes, we already agree that Africa has huge potential, but it is also one of the most difficult geolocations at the deployment level because of infrastructure problems, which currently are hardware and internet connection.

These problems are not new and will not solve themselves, so it is up to us, with our large-scale adoption projects, to seek to solve them or at least minimize them; if we don’t want to depend on the performance of others.

The data you presented are good indications, but what is your plan for using this information? For example… did you plan to develop networking with this smartphone industry for integrations or sales incentives in your territory?

These answers are important for us to understand your project and vision, this can even enable collaborations of mutual interest such as Continent DAO in the area of ​​infrastructure or project “X” that has a DeFi product and wants to integrate into your dapps, other projects and etc. This is our proposal with BitDAO (doc), we recently made an update on initial conversations with international organizations (United Nations + ITU) that can also collaborate on our projects in African territory – they have great expertise and are already connecting the internet to hundreds of schools in Africa.

Anyway, it would be interesting to have more information about your plans. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Great question! Jambo is one of the anchor proposers of AfricaDAO, and the Jambo team has been working hard on supporting and launching AfricaDAO for almost half a year now, we are super excited word is finally getting out!

Jambo is building the web3 superapp of Africa that will educate, bank, and entertain the continent. Our mission is to onboard the next millions and potentially even billion users across Africa onto web3.

Jambo aims to pioneer the largest, most influential Web3 user acquisition portal across the continent. Jambo serves as the bridge between Africa and applications from around the world seeking to tap into the African market. The opportunity here is immense. We have a long-term vision of realizing financial prosperity for Africans.

AfricaDAO’s vision aligns directly with Jambo’s as we both are spearheading the future ecosystem for web3 development in Africa. As a partner of AfricaDAO, Jambo’s team will use its extensive on-the-ground knowledge and experience of the region to facilitate acceleration for projects with the right talent.

Cheers!

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Thanks for sharing our blog post. We aim to help “demistify” the region as we provide regular updates on what we are seeing from our local operations and partners.

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Hopefully Commonwealth can help sync with us on tooling infra as we scale! Appreciate the show of support.

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Thank you for your support! We at the AfricaDAO team want to dedicate the next decade to unlocking that potential across Africa! By bringing crypto & blockchain technology to the mass public, we believe that it will truly empower financial freedom that the people deserve and give the power back to the hands of the people.

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Hi @zkLennox,
Completely agree! I’m a big fan of Mombasa and used to go to Kenya once a year at least :slight_smile: Because you’ve experienced Kenya first hand, it really helps shed light to the public on the current state of mobile money adoption in the different regions. M-pesa is a revolutionary technology play that can be considered one of the predecessors of the current p2p technology, with its ability to transact in a peer-to-peer manner without the use of internet connection is a feat that needs a spotlight of its own.
AfricaDAO’s mission and vision is to be at the forefront of the future decade of Africa leapfrogging once again by bringing the best investors and talent to empower regional talent who are actually building the future of Africa! Hakuna matata!

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Sounds a nice initiative, as the potential for web3 adoption in Africa is still yet to be explored, Definitely great to see communities taking initiative here.

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I’ve lived in both Malawi and South Africa and strongly support this initiative. James/Alice and the team not only have the skillset and network to pull this off, but also the HEART to make it soar.

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With the team and partners of the project, it’s incredibly well positioned to bring the continet to web3. Jambo from providing educational, community building and financial opportunities and AfricaDAO from helping local ventures get the lift they need. We’re happy to be part of the journey and help any way we can!

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Hey everyone,

Emerson, portfolio analyst from LongHash Ventures here. We’re investors in both BitDAO and Jambo, and we’re supportive of this proposal! Starting a web3 venture fund/DAO in Africa unlocks not just one, but two trends:

  1. Crypto adoption: As @jamboalice alluded to, Africa’s huge appetite for crypto (especially as an alternative to hyperinflationary currencies)

  2. Entrepreneurship: 22% the working-age population in Africa are entrepreneurs - the highest in the world. Although a significant proportion isn’t in web3 (yet), it’s indicative of the risk appetite for starting companies/projects in the region.

Given Jambo’s deep understanding, network, and presence on-the-ground in Africa, they’re also one of the best teams in web3 to source and evaluate localised projects in the region.

Side note to @jamboalice: We’re also happy to jump on a call sometime to share our experience building the first web3 accelerator in Asia back in 2017!

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Hey everyone,

Steven from Game7 here. Huge thumbs up to this proposal, really like what the team at Jambo is doing as they are making huge impact for the growth of Web3 in Africa. This is an emerging market with one of the highest adoption for both tech and Web3; gaming is definitely a huge piece of this puzzle! This is a great opportunity as there are 200m mobile-first gamers with 50% smart phone penetration in Africa! Very excited to work together and collaborate on future initiatives in disrupting gaming in Africa.

@jambojames Been a pleasure working with you thus far, excited for the what’s coming :slight_smile:

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Hi JJBen,

We believe working with local talent and a deep understanding of the regional characteristics across Africa is very important to whomever AfricaDAO works with. As the third generation of my family in Africa and having grown up in Kinshasa, it’s obvious there isn’t a one size fits all for the region. There’s a wealth of diverse cultures and languages across Africa. Given the scale of AfricaDAO’s vision we believe it is key for us to be able to adapt and work with everyone.

Many of the proposers and advisors listed are quite invested in Africa or have been involved with some of the most successful unicorns across different regions. In our proposal we listed a network of African regional advisors from North, South, East and West Africa (whose bios listed on pages 13-21 of our proposal) who are influential entrepreneurs or investors in that locality who can help as advisors to other projects and also introduce good deal flow from that region.

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Hi @don

Honestly we see the challenges you mentioned above as an opportunity for us to be at the forefront of Africa’s future. AfricaDAO’s vision is to work with the best talent with the right strategy in their respective region as different parts of Africa are very diverse.

See pages 10 to 11 in our proposal on more details of what we discussed here:

“AfricaDAO will utilize a three-pronged approach to accelerating Africa into a hub for web3 innovation.

Investment and Acquisition

The bulk of funds will be allocated to AfricaDAO’s venture investment strategy. This makes AfricaDAO incentive aligned with both the teams it partners with & the mission as a whole. AfricaDAO will target companies with these big five traits:

a. Lion: userbase or revenue with over 50% growth annually

b. Elephant: top 3 product in a niche or region

c. Leopard: team with over 3 years of experience building in emerging markets

d. Buffalo: sector with 10x+ potential growth in the next 3-5 years

Acceleration: Sourcing and Empowering the Best Talent

The AfricaDAO & its partners will:

  1. Launch web2 teams into web3 with an African user base as the primary focus
  2. Connect teams with potential partners throughout the continent: hardware, software, marketing channels, etc.
  3. Create AfricaDAO Accelerators
  4. Provide Grants

Assist with:

  1. Entity formation
  2. Fundraising
  3. Product strategy
  4. Go-to-market strategy, etc.

Additionally, the AfricaDAO and its partners will provide best-in-class crypto-native expertise to advise on:

  1. Token design & distribution
  2. Protocol design
  3. Launch strategy
  4. Community development plan
  5. DAO structuring, etc.

Education

The AfricaDAO & its partners will provide the expertise needed to implement educational initiatives aimed specifically at developing web3 talent positioning Africans to start and/or join AfricaDAO portfolio companies. To that end, we will:

  • Work with leading colleges across Africa to expose students to web3 technology, careers, and companies
  • Fund web3 classes across Africa, especially programs that teach technical topics (like solidity/rust development)
  • Host hackathons, meetups, conferences, and other web3-focused gatherings
  • Establish job pipelines between major African technology companies, universities, web3 projects, etc.
  • Develop a grant program to support students exploring careers in blockchain

AfricaDAO’s mission is to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs in the African continent. If other projects’ mission and vision align with AfricaDAO’s, we are more than happy to collaborate with these projects. We really do appreciate your interest in Africa and AfricaDAO’s plans :slight_smile:

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Clear Proposal overview and great explanation of background and benefits of BitDao in relation to the goals and objectives of the Africa DOA. I truly believe this three-pronged approach will accelerate Africa into a hub for web3 innovation. Innovation in Africa is there, the talent in the young population pool is present and the pathway to create real world benefits is clear. Education is key but the structures that need to be in place for hundreds of millions of Africans to launch, build, and participate in the future of web3 is critical.

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Hi @Test,

Thank you for your support. Our vision is to spearhead the future ecosystem for web3 development by bringing the best investors and talent to empower regional talent in Africa, whether that’s going to be in P2E, DeFi primitives or improved crypto and blockchain frameworks and infrastructure.

There are numerous other factors driving the web3 adoption in Africa that we outlined in page 3 of our proposal. Africa has the fastest growing and youngest population on the planet with great smartphone penetration (~50%), 4G internet user-base growth (going from 150M in 2022 to 300M by 2025) and increasing crypto adoption due to hyperinflation, instability and high unemployment rates.

We are here to support this growth by bringing in the capital and international expertise needed to supercharge Africa for the next decade and beyond.

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