Denis Opudo
Recently, Charles Hoskinson, the pioneer of blockchain technology just signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Ethiopia that will take the production of coffee on the blockchain technology. This came out to the public through a tweet made on his twitter handle account dated 2nd May 2018. Hoskinson is also the co-founder of Ethereum. He is also playing an important role in developing Cardano startup which uses the blockchain technology. The startup will help explore ways on which African countries can use its technology in their agri-tech sectors.
During the time when the startup was being published, its ADA was trading below 6% and it got ranked as number 6. This made traders not to celebrate its publication. The MOU gives the participants a duty to locate ways through which blockchain can be used to track coffee along with its chain of supply. The technology should also be used for land registry purposes to reduce the rate of land fraud. The collaboration will last for a long period since education is part of the deal. The founder is also planning to go a notch higher and train developers on how to use the blockchain on their own.
Cordano used Ethiopia as a case study to come up with its vision for the developing world. The director of African Operations at IOHK, John O’Connor gave a glimpse on how education will play an important role in the Cordano’s mission in improving the African agricultural sector. He did this through a blog post saying that the company will offer its first course in Africa. This is especially in Ethiopia in 2018. Thereafter they will look forward to having the first breed of cohorts of developers from Ethiopia. The developers will have to play a role in Cardano’s code before the end of 2018. O’Connor joined IOHK from the Cardano Foundation.
Hoskinson used another platform at the London School of Economics to expound more on the role of Cardano to the developing world. He gave a speech about land registry problem. He cited a situation where the owners of the land are denied their right of ownership. This is because of lack of enough record of their land. African countries like Kenya, Ghana and Rwanda are moving towards the right direction when it comes to tackling land issues. They are using blockchain technology to tackle the issue. This is the main area where IOHK and Cardano are placing their focus on. Moreover, he used the platform to explain the reason why he joined the crypto world. He said he wanted to explore what is needed for him to offer the tools to people globally in order to allow them to solve their own problem. Before his visit to Africa, he was at Tel Aviv where IOHK’s developers presented to cryptographers. This took place at EuroCrypto 2018 event.
