Building Cardano at the Grassroots: From Awareness to Practical Use Across Africa
The end of August 2026 marked an important milestone for our grassroots Cardano work in Africa.
Across South Africa, Ghana, the Republic of the Congo, and Burkina Faso, seven community events approved through Ambassador voting have so far reached 59 attendees. The programme was coordinated by Bernard Sibanda, CTO of Coxygen Global, and delivered by seven local organizers under Coxygen Global’s social-impact initiative:
Build Yourself! Build Your Future!
These numbers may still be modest, but the objective is not simply to fill venues. The objective is to build people who can actually use Cardano.
Keeping grassroots Cardano education moving
Project Catalyst played an important role in nurturing grassroots Cardano initiatives around the world. In its absence, we decided that our local education work should not simply stop.
We took responsibility for continuing it.
Cardano’s long-term ambitions, including the vision of dramatically expanding real wallet adoption by 2030, will require more than online discussion. They require sustained education, practical demonstrations, local champions, accessible tools, and people who are confident enough to execute transactions themselves.
That is what Coxygen Global is working to contribute across universities, communities, and countries.
Our journey started in 2024 with Catalyst support. In 2025, the programme expanded and reached more than 600 students across over 48 tertiary institutions.
One limitation became very clear: much of that work was remote.
So in 2026, we changed the approach.
We are increasingly taking Cardano education in person, directly into communities where participants can meet, learn together, ask questions, create wallets, execute transactions and understand what blockchain technology can actually do.
You can view some of our August 2026 events and attendees here:
https://coxygen.co/universities/coxy-event-saas/gallery/?view=public#publicSection
Browse through the gallery sections to see activities from the different events.
And August was only the beginning. More events are lined up for September 2026 and will be added to the Coxy Events platform.
Introducing Coxy Events : Coxy Events
Coxy Events was built to help promote and manage in-person Cardano activities.
Instead of Cardano education ending with a social-media post or presentation, we want communities to have infrastructure for organizing events, recording participation, sharing activities and building an ongoing history of grassroots engagement.
The platform is available for others to use as well.
But what did attendees actually do?
This is where the programme becomes more interesting.
Participants were not only introduced to blockchain concepts.
They were introduced specifically to Cardano, and then asked to use it.
Across these training activities, attendees practically executed more than 1,000 transactions on Cardano preproduction using our training wallet and dApp, Coxy Wallet.
You can try it yourself:
https://coxygen.co/universities/
Create an account, connect the wallet and then ask yourself a simple question:
How many Cardano features can I actually use without somebody doing them for me?
That distinction matters.
Knowing about blockchain is different from using blockchain.
Knowing Cardano is different from creating a wallet, sending ADA, receiving ADA, minting assets and interacting with decentralized applications yourself.
From wallets to a digital marketplace
One area that generated particular interest among attendees was the ability to move beyond basic transactions.
Participants explored activities such as:
- creating and using Cardano wallets;
- sending and receiving test ADA;
- minting fungible tokens and NFTs;
- buying and selling minted digital assets;
- working with audio, video and other digital content;
- interacting with marketplace functionality; and
- learning through practical, contest-style activities.
The goal is to make Cardano something participants experience, not something they merely hear about.
Coxy Wallet: Silver today, bigger ambitions tomorrow
The version of Coxy Wallet being used in these training programmes represents what we call our Silver Mode.
Our ambition is to continue developing the wallet and dApp through future Gold, Diamond and Platinum stages, improving its capabilities, usability and readiness for wider adoption.
Coxygen Global is working with dedicated tertiary students and young developers as part of that journey.
To reach the next stages, however, funding and partnerships are needed.
If you believe that Cardano adoption should include practical grassroots education, African universities, young developers and communities that are often underrepresented in emerging technology, we would welcome conversations about funding, collaboration and sponsorship.
Every serious blockchain ecosystem eventually has to answer the same question:
Who is going to teach the next million users how to actually use it?
We intend to contribute to that answer.
Thank you
Our sincere thanks go to the Cardano Ambassadors whose votes made these August activities possible, to the organizers who carried the work into their communities, and especially to every participant who was willing to learn by doing.
And to you, the reader who made it all the way to the end — we have something more enjoyable for you.
Explore and enjoy some Cardano music from our community:
https://coxygen.co/universities/coxy-event-saas/gallery/?view=clips#clipsSection
Build Yourself. Build Your Future. Build Cardano through use.