Date: Saturday 07/06/2025 (weekly session)
Facilitators: Laurentine Kassa (Inkuba Hub Manager), Boaz (Goma Hub Manager)
Participants: Francophone communities from DRC, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire
Recap of Previous Session
Nico briefly summarized the May 31st meeting facilitated by Ms. Laurentine Kassa and Mr. Boaz. This session had introduced the Cardano blockchain and gathered experience testimonials from active members like Olivier (community reviewer since 2021), Boaz (Goma Hub Manager), Honoré (Goma team lead), and new members like John. The main issues identified were Africa’s marginalization in the ecosystem (no African projects recently funded) and challenges with the new voting system. Participants had proposed improvements including creating an African blockchain and the importance of personal development in training programs.
Safrochain Project
Boaz revealed that a team from the Cardano community is currently developing Safrochain, a blockchain designed to embody African philosophy while remaining globally open. This project directly responds to suggestions made in the previous session regarding a blockchain dedicated to Africa.
Analysis of Priority African Challenges
The main objective of this session was to collectively identify concrete problems where blockchain can add value in Africa. Boaz posed two fundamental questions to participants: what are the three main challenges in their country or region that blockchain could solve, and do they have concrete examples of problems experienced in their environment. Exploration areas included financial services, electoral transparency, agriculture, health, education, land rights, and entrepreneurship.
Monetary Circulation and Financial Services
Jonathan Bikose from Goma exposed a critical problem affecting his city: monetary circulation difficulties aggravated by bank closures and mobile money service malfunctions. He explained that even with money on their SIM card, it’s often impossible to withdraw it due to insufficient liquidity in the city. Additionally, dollar holders suffer unfavorable exchange rates imposed by operators. Jonathan proposed that blockchain could solve these problems by enabling digital currency circulation, thus bypassing traditional banking system limitations.
Boaz complemented this intervention by highlighting the cryptocurrency volatility issue, which constitutes a major adoption barrier. Laurentine added depth by discussing a concrete project she participates in: a blockchain-based tontine system. She questioned the practical feasibility of such a system, explaining that a person accustomed to contributing 10,000 CFA francs monthly to their traditional tontine could end up spending more to obtain the equivalent in ADA according to market fluctuations. This concern perfectly illustrates the adoption challenges that blockchain innovations face against established financial habits. Boaz then proposed a technical solution: using stablecoins like USDT, USDC, or Cardano’s DJED, which maintain stable value and would avoid these unpredictable variations.
Security and Counter-Terrorism Financing
Laurentine presented a particularly relevant use case for Burkina Faso and Sahel countries: combating terrorism financing. She recounted the recent seizure of trucks filled with weapons destined for terrorist activities, as well as the discovery of other vehicles containing people disguised as merchandise to infiltrate the capital. Faced with these threats, the Burkinabé government attempts to control financial flows by limiting bank transfers and requiring justifications for high amounts.
Laurentine proposed several blockchain-based solutions: real-time monitoring of suspicious fund transfers, automatic identification of terrorist financing patterns, and creating a shared registry among Sahel countries to trace illicit financial flows. Although she admitted not mastering the technical coding aspects, she was convinced these solutions were technically feasible with blockchain.
Educational Archives and Identity Issues
Nico shared a personal experience perfectly illustrating archival system failures in Africa. Having graduated in 2017, he recently discovered with a classmate that they could no longer find their final term report cards. When his father went to the former school to try recovering these documents, he faced poorly organized archives where manual searching through document piles offered no guarantee of success.
This anecdote reveals a systemic problem affecting all African educational institutions, whether public or private. Even with digitization, data remains vulnerable if stored centrally. Nico explained that blockchain would offer an ideal solution because once data is recorded, it becomes immutable and accessible for life. Thus, even eight years after his graduation, he could still retrieve his report cards when needed.
Structural Adoption Challenges
Boaz identified three major problems hindering blockchain adoption in Africa. First, education: although training exists, it’s not accessible to all and content is often too technical and “indigestible” for the general public. Pedagogy needs rethinking and training materials need improvement.
Second, adoption itself poses problems at multiple levels. Can rural populations using basic phones really benefit from blockchain? Are companies ready to adopt these technologies? And especially, will African governments, often plagued by corruption, accept a system that makes all transactions transparent and immutable?
Third, resilience, meaning the capacity to adapt to technological changes, can only develop after solving education and adoption problems. It involves creating flexibility to progressively accept innovations.
Healthcare Data Security
Olivier from Goma exposed a problem personally experienced during a medical visit with his brother. Difficulties accessing medical results, aggravated by network problems, led him to reflect on blockchain’s potential contribution to the healthcare sector. He proposed a system where medical records would be cryptographically secured on blockchain, allowing patients easy access to their information via a dedicated application.
Interoperability constitutes another major advantage: a patient treated in DRC could consult elsewhere in Africa without losing their medical history. Doctors could thus continue treatments based on previous data. Olivier also mentioned the possibility of integrating cryptocurrency payments to improve hospital financing traceability.
Implementation Challenges
Laurentine concluded by emphasizing that it’s not enough to propose blockchain solutions without clearly demonstrating their added value compared to existing web technologies. Participants must be able to precisely explain why blockchain is necessary to solve each identified problem, or risk facing questions they cannot answer.
She also insisted on the crucial need for francophone blockchain development experts to technically validate these proposals. Unfortunately, experienced developers are not sufficiently available to participate in these community sessions.
Perspectives
This meeting identified concrete and relevant use cases for francophone Africa. The next session will focus on technical deepening of these solutions and inviting experts to transform these ideas into viable proposals. The ultimate goal is to move beyond the discussion stage to create truly implementable solutions capable of obtaining funding and having real impact on African communities.
Next Meeting: Saturday, June 14, 2025 at 4 PM
Discord: Laurentine F Djatsa
X: @InkubaA