# ETHLagos: Onboarding Developers and Laying a Foundation for 1 Billion+ People (Devcon5)

- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2020-10-09
- Duration: 20:19
- Topics: blockchain, smart contracts, distributed ledger, ethereum, Science & Technology
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-oQ60o-PP6t8
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ60o-PP6t8

## Description

Visit the https://archive.devcon.org/ to gain access to the entire library of Devcon talks with the ease of filtering, playlists, personalized suggestions, decentralized access on IPFS and more.
https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/5/ethlagos-onboarding-developers-and-laying-a-foundation-for-1billion-people

Through firsthand experience, our group of EF devs realized that hackathon participants often lack sufficient knowledge to create meaningful projects within the short timeframe of a hackathon event. This has led us to create a concept called ETHimpact. ETHimpact is introducing a novel approach to solving social and global challenges. By creating an inclusive environment and bringing together developers, designers, and industry experts into a week-long program to learn and co-create decentralized solutions for social impact, we effectively break down barriers between groups with a shared vision to drive towards a sustainable future. Our team is now made up of motivated individuals from all walks of life. We are supported by the EF, the German Development agency (GIZ), as well as local initiatives like the Africa Blockchain Alliance. We do not only end our engagement with the hackers after the hackathon/event, but will continue to work with the winning teams to build out the solutions into sustainable impactful projects. 
ETHLagos is the first iteration of this concept, and we would like to introduce it to the world at Devcon. In this first edition, we will focus on decentralized energy solutions: an area of prime importance for Nigeria in the wake of its current energy crisis.
We chose Lagos because it is a thriving techhub in Africa, and because we’ve realized that decentralization is not a new concept to Nigerians and Africans in general. Ancient civilizations within Nigeria and Africa have governed themselves using decentralised concepts for centuries. Examples include consensus mechanisms, oracles and state channels. The ancient civilizations of Ife, Benin and Igbo communities within Nigeria have used these concepts and still use them today. This has also made it easier for the concepts of decentralization to be understood and accepted across Africa and helped in building a thriving community of blockchain enthusiasts on the continent through the Africa Blockchain Alliance. 
One of the fruits of the African community effort is the Ribbon Blockchain built on Ethereum. Ribbon seeks to automate public health through tokenized incentives. Ribbon enables crowdfunding for public health programs, then distributes proceeds as incentives to patients and healthcare practitioners to encourage healthier lifestyles and quality healthcare delivery. Funding is sent directly to patients, community health workers and healthcare practitioners; where the funding is used for preventative care, adherence to medication, quality care delivery and overall population health outcomes. A demo of the incentives app will be showcased. 
We believe that many more impactful projects in the energy space and more areas will emerge from this concept which we will keep supporting in solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges. 


Speaker(s): Guillaume Ballet, Maurice von Glasenapp, Eseoghene Mentie, Benjamin Onuoha, Rob Stupay
Skill level: Beginner
Track: Society and Systems


Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum
Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/
Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/ 

Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers. 
Devcon 5 was held in Osaka, Japan on Oct 8 - 11, 2019.
Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/

## Transcript

[Applause] konnichiwa my name is Boris I work for the serum foundation what is the most what about if I would summarize it in three key words I would say blockchain server impact and and but his name is not only hackathon in Lagos Nigeria on February 20 2014 on the centralized energy solutions it's a conference it's an educational event it's an actor and it's even more so who are we and what will we present to you today a cement from new parts consensus and actually from Lagos will present you a little bit more about the Nigeria context for you to get a better understanding on how we got there Jim buddy Cora Tyrion developer will tell you about the concept of Lagos and its schedule and Lebanon wha-wha-wha from East Africa and blockchain and hence will tell you about how we will manage that this events will have impacts on the real world so let me give the stage to you listen about Nigeria okay so gia if Mary would she other nice a rich I mean I'm talking about it agree with three husbands the first thing is the only people do not know the measures of recipes in Africa that cooler was Restless current and it's also the case in Africa are back please that's the largest producer of crude oil and also the largest reserves of crude oil in Africa to Nigeria has a population of Sumatra million people since the most populous the latter country and the city of Lagos has 20 million people we're here and that affects it's one of the largest cities in the world and you can compare it to a queue with the next big Mexico City and in that same Lagos there is a huge head start of ecosystem which is one of the largest ecosystems in Africa we have really talented talented developers I mean major major and school in Nigeria Nigeria NASA and at one of those scientists wars and regardless of all these things there is an energy crisis what what the scent of people got a makeover in areas like eggless do not have access to energy and even if they do we haven't even three to four hours to pick and satisfy yourself of people that even the rural areas Jimin has a stretch that's all they don't even have car and I'll give you more in taxes I angrily materials for their when school they're all right and I was great not there was this term I said earlier three hours of power then power goes off to next you know sometimes two days right is what it sounds very much for some people that always hang out every day and one of the past ones open I was a child we used to say this thing up never what I've never means like the power link of the comida generates and distributes power is called acronym never so we would scream off the air because the c5 is no power and then and then never and older children still scream of ever so you can just imagine how all these energy crisis has and still there and people that have power has to have like for me to do my job I work for concerns for me to my job and it was all three alternate air source of electricity so that I can tell you who my husband of our dream is now imagine how hard and even imagine the technical system how hard it is for them to develop just view something with those challenges thank you yes so precisely how do we make this happen how do we build something there's been a lot of experiments making the eighties the nineties where people were trying to bring you know very well attention people were bringing their building building as things that the Lobos didn't need so they were very quickly ripped apart turning to something else so clearly the the solution is about making those people who have the problem tell us what they and we believe that blockchain get anymore that's I mean this is this is what the technology will build me we want it to be useful and hopefully Nigeria can provide this this is fertile ground for ideas so we're going to gather those people and provide a hackathon but one of the problems that happen in hackathon is even though those you have a lot of talented people like Nigeria certainly has a lot of that they don't necessarily understand blockchain they don't understand energy but you have the program before this one so we need to make sure that they have the right background so we're going to bring like experts professionals we're going to have a support of the conference of the greater conference we're going to have the problems with the Prime Minister the Minister of Energy there is going to be a keynote we're going to have the German development agency that is going to bring experts to train those those developers on on energy solutions and of course we're going to bring like community of Eastern community we're going to bring rachac knowledge so this is the program of the of the event we're going to start like I said with the whistle training we're going to make sure that those that Walkerton are not thrown in the cold water and then the the hackathon starts and the code for three days and at the end of it we finally we finally select the winners oh yeah one thing so we bring a lot of partners of course and I forgot to say the GIC the German Development Agency has a talk at DEFCON so go go attend them they're available people and and yes that's actually not the end of the story because after the after the the hackathon is done we don't stop there hi everyone thanks for coming to our session so yeah we want to make sure that the projects that the winning teams because it's not a big problem that is it has described you want to make sure that the winning teams continue to evolve into sustainable projects that they continue to solve that problem so we will be working with them to make sure that to help them partners like the GIC there's a department of decentralization I believe in Berlin there are a whole lot of pilots that are very interested in this so that the program of the project are the winning teams actually gets into being a sustainable project also helped me to plant those winning teams or we project into other funding sources you know within the ecosystem like the efk decline even the UNICEF had a lot of other groups so not just win a hackathon and then we move on and go on to the next but no they are going to sustain more projects and just as a background also before that there's been a lot of community development efforts in Africa a lot of btob's material we're running several develop perhaps especially consensus are having me to keep training developers so a lot is going on in the ecosystem so we're just going to build on that and also continue with them into sustainable projects so one of the examples of what we hope to come out of it Lagos an example is a project concrete on blockchain it's totally unrelated but same with me when you see the connection so it's a team gathering around the theorem like I said there's a lot of team and community development effort that has been done already in Africa so this seems just for organic candy from different hackathons and meetups what they're trying to do is to use incentives to solve the public health adherence problem it's about a one trillion dollar problem so it's to incentivize practitioners health practitioners doctors nurses health workers and patients but healthy behaviors when these three groups I incentivized you know it's to give that the Health System will be more efficient so we want projects or we need teams from equally goes to be like this that form organic candy and this is a shining example and they'll also be active because so we invite you to come and see them there one last thing is because has been working with the whole groups if your foundation has been very kind to say hair to have drive this initiative of the German government Development Agency GIC they have a smaller mini roots project in Nigeria so attendees are participants who have what we call a return on what's the chorus again eternal experience so being at the forefront of innovation where we will actually plot this we need teams and participants to and it's this enlarged skill intimate issue let's try to solve a real problem so GIC has a solar great project in rural areas that added a lot of value and we can only imagine what this skill is if we have the blockchain element and the innovation that they are people come up with and of course the ABA also working so I think I'll hand over to Maurice to wrap it up here we have a little slide about the team members of this Empire is in fact as a legal entity we are currently setting up it's a German nonprofits and it helps us to empower our East a us but also to help to incubate the winning projects and afterwards we are ready to organize more similar projects development world so he's in violence but his legacy is the kind of impact so we are reaching out to all of you developers energy engineers entrepreneurs sponsors everyone who is interested and we would love you to reach out to us so how could you participate it's very simple we actually launched our website yesterday each day goes that I hope you'll find all relevant info there and here is a to dark arts on the website you'll find a riot chat where you can ask questions and applications for assistance will open soon on the website too so don't hesitate to catch us if you are seeing us around as will be here during the whole week and that's it thank you very much we have like five minutes for Russians so do have some questions pay attention yeah also you might go into the daily more practical examples of how the population major major are actually using maybe like a scoyne or the other alternative currency in the nation a life's like nice Pacific wait is this is something like Sharia responses of the last three years it's called a church and really huge gift pirates actually people in Nigeria Devon and really have two penguins it's just a volume people and those customers who actually sharing these nice right now when they got suit you know I guess there's kind of an educational capital they are very very like adopted Bitcoin in massive way okay speaking in German you speak letter which is you know that's it okay yeah so there is a lot of interest but there's a lot of crypto speculation right in Nigeria speculate another crypto and the price that is what they do only and in my opinion I mean I speak for myself I think that is classic it's not what the emphasis that means to speculate on the price we need to move into an era where people actually understand technology at the power that it has not what we can build on it so we've done a lot of work we've done three or four I don't know peer leaders in Lagos two or three hackathons so there is that awareness that okay this thing is more than just something I can buy at $5,000 $10,000 with dads wall that you said there a lot of scouts too so people equate Bitcoin new pyramid schemes cuz a lot of people say oh yeah you know you're putting this amount of money you get cash I like this amount and all sorts of products and services that they have so when I said so those other things that we are working very hard to change even within the Alliance we are running a Developer Program we always do not change with executives with also all sorts of people who endorse sessions we're also engaging and funny love deepen regulators also associates in Bitcoin and crypto and blockchain as a scam you know so I don't question there's a lot of work we've done but there are a few tasks in terms of education and changing people's by that this is not an investment it's not something you buy and you start at a certain price it is a lot of pyramid scheme it is not all of these things you're thinking about it's a powerful technology that you can use to do a lot of things and hopefully this what comes out of this will show people that this is not just Krypton there's so much more and it can actually use to solve routines and that's what I'm moving this review the other questions okay you take maybe two of the questions and then we can wrap it up Thanks yeah you're picking up many of the somewhat same question I guess but it's like the in terms of the the pavement or earth form of currency where you got a petition with Ireland with a Chinese painting missionary isn't already a step ahead we're good I kind of figure opportunity to to get to people the part of the speculation aspect of course but still I mean in terms of the internal currency stability is not never how does that like register people so it's very difficult to move the night especially for remittance and stuff like that so there is an opportunity there the other thing we're talking about is to have a broader blotching week conversation so will the involve directly there's there and have that conversation but yes that is a big problem that the currency is very visionary you can't move it around and it's a general problem in Africa so that's why we need everybody to sort of have those broader conversations also but you have the opportunities there the last question I think we have one too any more questions just a question about sponsorships can you speak xx as much as we were bored already and what kind of brackets really so for now it's still fundraising but we have some partners like John Development Agency called Jersey they are involving partners from the energetic cetera the drummer energetic support because they are very interested in having this regional experience because you can try out things in Nigeria that you cannot try out in Europe it's difficult to set your energy through your neighbor Europe but you can do that in Nigeria and will be able to try out the developed solutions on these vinaigrettes in Nigeria and this is very interesting for them so we have some of them we have also people from our ecosystem were showing a lot of interest like get coin and others yeah we are reaching out to a lot of people so we are from the sponsors we are international organizations we have our blockchain ecosystem and we have the energetics x1 so it's kind of a Wyatt range that's it all right [Applause]