ABCD

African Developer Training (then Expertise) Centre specializing in the development,of core Cardano blockchain technologies and applications.

We are a team of ambassadors who Cofounded POA,a stakepool-based adoption driver based in Africa,coordinating Meetups,boots on the ground.

Creation of the African Blockchain Centre for Developers (ABCD)

Draft paper

Why a African Blockchain Centre for Developers is needed?

The world is now being built on code, it's not only brick-and-mortar anymore. Most people don't see an African as a potential world class software engineer, their views about Africa is based on the ads they see on media that solicits for helping a child or to donate to something. We don't believe it's the most efficient or a sustainable way to support Africa!

The African continent is home to an emerging digital ecosystem and not enough light has been shone on the potentials that lies within the continent with respect to its massive talent pool and creativity of the African youth.

For a new rise up of Africa, we believe that we need to give a chance for people who want to make changes to positively impact on society to do so.

As the world continues developing, we have brilliant African minds that are full of ideas and energy but who couldn't find the infrastructure and fund to realize their dreams.

We would like to give them the opportunity to learn at an elite level and get them everything they need to make their ideas and projects a reality.

African Blockchain Centre for Developers aims at creating opportunities providing blockchain Solutions for the world by utilizing the pool of talents working remotely in Africa building solutions for developers, start-ups, enterprises, and governments. This center has a vision to help bridge the developer-skills gap in Africa by providing better access to high-quality, world-class skills on blockchain technology.

Our main goal is finding talented and motivated people to provide them with the skills and means necessary to perform at an elite level. Following this, we would like to give them opportunity to work, developing their own projects or to place them with partner companies looking for this talent(s) which will in turn create a global developer community for the cardano network.

In-depth look into the concept of the African Blockchain Centre for Developers

The proposed mission of the African Blockchain Centre for Developers (ABCD) is to stimulate the establishment and growth of technology-based start-up companies and other compatible businesses.

By fulfilling this mission, ABCD will concretely contribute to job creation, businesses on boarding to Cardano ecosystem, creation of Smart contracts and Dapps and provide for enhanced economic health to Africa while promoting and encouraging adoption of Cardano throughout the continent.

Together with the Cardano Community, ABCD will create, develop and provide open source materials for new and emerging technology specializing in the development of core Cardano blockchain technologies and applications.

These achievements will increase the successful development of emerging businesses in the Cardano blockchain ecosystem by providing training, mentorship, shared space, professional assistance and other value-added services required to thrive. Ideally, businesses that graduate from ABCD's incubator would grow, move out into the community and contribute to the overall vitality, diversity, and growth of Cardano in the booming Africa's economy.

ABCD will provide an environment that allows Africans to take an active role in "growing their own" businesses that will lead to job creations. These new businesses and new jobs produced create wealth through multiplier effects that ultimately benefits the overall community beyond the individuals.

ABCD main activities overview :

Developer Training and skills development - ABCD will train and provide a network for developers and many other professionals working with projects in the Cardano ecosystem. ABCD will provide value added services customized to their needs at every step of their learning journey within the Cardano and Blockchain environment.

Business Assistance – Together with the Cardano community and active partners, ABCD will help startups through their early development by providing business advice, resources, contacts and technical support services including guidance and mentoring on business strategy, management, marketing, financial, legal, and product development issues as well as connecting startups with investors.

Facility-Based Services - ABCD will provide developers and start-ups with appropriate rental space and flexible leases, shared business services and equipment, technology support services, and assistance necessary for company growth.

Benefits to Stakeholders

When ABCD will reach its cruising altitude, the center would benefit a wide range of stakeholders.

Benefits to Cardano Ecosystem

ABCD believes that the public's faith in a blockchains value is one of the key factors for adoption. ABCD not only intends to train developers to service projects within the cardano community but also provide technical assistance to local communities to solve inherent african problems on the cardano blockchain by providing an ecosystem that enables blockchain startups flourish.

We think that in order to promote and lead to the adoption of Cardano, we need to show that everything is possible, any useful applications can be developed and integrated to the ecosystem.

Not only applications developed by westerners for westerners, but also by the africans for the africans. And more generally, by the people for the people.

Some of our developers already have promising ideas for some of the most critical issues in Africa.

Benefits to Youth/Unemployed

ABCD ecosystem will enable youths, software engineers, developers and dreamers to kickstart a career in blockchain development, learn Blockchain related skills as well as apply that knowledge in building decentralized applications within Cardano.

Benefits to Start-Ups

Start-ups can collaborate with diverse entrepreneurs as well as solve unique needs for partnerships, suppliers, and/or potential sources of capital. ABCD will help accelerate blockchain startups growth by providing office space and services, mentorship, expertise, influence, and access to capital.

This lowers the overhead and operating costs during critical formative years. ABCD would significantly increase visibility and presence of tenant companies in the marketplace and advance their success potential.

Benefits to the overall African community

ABCD would create new employment opportunities in the blockchain space for africans as well as create higher wage and higher skill jobs.

ABCD activities within the region and then the continent will enhance Africa's image as a progressive, future-thinking place that encourages and supports technology business development.

ABCD will support the community and government in economic development, provision of skilled manpower, increase tax base, improve visibility of host community and improve entrepreneurship in the blockchain sector.

Recruitment process

One of the critical steps to guarantee the success of this project on the long term is the quality of recruitment.

We not only need to find brilliant young developers, we also need to ensure that they will stay within the training center for a certain period of time 3 / 4 years.

Regarding the technical criteria, we would like to discuss with Project Catalyst team what they should be and how they would like us to assess them.

For the pilot phases we already have pre-selected 10 young developers including young talented women. These people will have a solid IT and dev background and are already operational to develop application in several useful languages (Java, Javascript, Python, etc.). They will continue to learn Haskell, Plutus and Marlowe in order to be able to develop their first Dapp as soon as Goguen is available.

Proposed organizational structure for ABCD in Port Harcourt

Staffing

In order to efficiently manage and run the team, we will mainly need developers but also a support team to allow them to mainly dedicate themselves to "learning and coding".

In that purpose, on top of the devs, we plan to recruit the follwing profiles :

⦁ Head of centre

⦁ Secretary/receptionnist

⦁ Security

For the pilot phase, the receptionist and security position would be the only paid position at the incubator, the proposed ABCD staffing would include a full-time Director and Operations/programme Manager. The staff would oversee the day to day activities of the centre as well as manage facilities. Subsequent increases in staff strenght depend on increases in workload and funding availability.

Long term goals of the ABCD are to foster the blossoming of professional developer teams throughout the African Continent.

Project director and lead coordinator will be Cardano Ambassador Joshua Akpan. Joshua is known throughout the Cardano Community for his leadership and coordination of Blockchain Meetups, host on The Cardano Community Podcast, boots on the ground, collaborator and advocate for Proof of Africa (POA), Cardano Shelley Summit 2020 Presenter, and Social Media Evangelist for Cardano.

Venue

We have conducted prospects for finding ABCD's offices (rental) and some interesting ones have been selected.

Among them, one on the Woji Road, GRA Phase 2, Port Harcourt, Rivers retain our attention.

This place will allow to host a team up to 60 people with open offices, meeting rooms, conference room, etc. in a secure area.

Until ABCD reaches its critical size, offices and services will be sub-rented to other businesses.

Continuation plan

Within the next 10 years, we intend to develop the project progressively increasing the number of attendees and then expand the initiative in other countries.

Long term activities of ABCD will be:

⦁ Blockchain Training/Education

ABCD will train and enable enterpreneurs launch a career in blockchain and Hyperledger Fabric and gain the essential knowledge and expertise to develop applications in enterprise environment.

We will also provide trainings for scholars, Government agencies, Corporate bodies, private firms and entrepreneurs that need to know and understand blockchain technology and the benefit of developing their applications on the Cardano ecosystem.

⦁ Direct Business Development Assistance

ABCD will provide oversight and facilitate access to resources in other to stimulate sustainable MSME development by improving their general business environment.

⦁ Professional Network and Relationship Support

ABCD will play an active role in developing links with resources that enterpreneurs might not otherwise have access to as small, emerging businesses.

ABCD is already developing a broad-based pool of high-quality professionals that have the technical and business skills needed to support client businesses.

⦁ Educational/Awareness Programs

ABCD would build and maintain up-to-date information resources for technology start-ups as well as host on-site seminars, meet-ups, hackathons and other events of interest to technology start-ups.

⦁ Facility-Based Services

ABCD will provide clients with appropriate rental space and flexible leases, shared business services and equipment, technology support services, and assistance necessary for company growth.

To reach those ambitious but realistic objectives we think that we need to progressively extend our activites following several steps:

Pilot phase (Year 1)

Test phase, opening of a permanent centre in Nigeria for 10 full-time developers in order to test the format, content, level of the attendees to be able to create a tailor-made program to train and support our developers.

Phase 1 (Year 2 - 5)

Replicate the pilot model at larger scale to allow more attendees to get trained.

We already developed a network of more than 50 african developers familiar with Cardano and passionate about the Blockchain ecosystem.

Phase 2 (From year 3)

Replicate and expand the training model in different countries in Africa. We already have a promising contacts with Adidjan university officials in Ivory Coast.

Phase 3 (From year 5)

Opening of permanent centres across Africa applying the lessons learnt from the Nigerian office.

Simple budget and Financial Estimates

ABCD will kickstart operations from a pilot phase (Year 1) estimated at 700 000 adas.

Overall, we anticipate that it will take 5 to 7 years to achieve self-sustainability.

The estimate for 5-7 year period is approximately 18 000 000 adas.

This estimate takes into account the different costs :

⦁ Safety / Fire / Hazards

⦁ Insurance (Full cover)

⦁ Power setup (Generators, Inverter, Powerbank, etc.)

⦁ Server room (CCTV servers, Internet, networking, wiring, etc.)

⦁ Basic working setup (Workstation, display, screen, desks, tables, chairs, whiteboard, etc.)

⦁ Conference and meeting rooms (screen, tables, chairs, whiteboard, etc.)

⦁ Reception

⦁ Kitchen/lounge

⦁ Monthly expenses (electricity, internet, cooling/AC, salaries)

Other initiatives

In the meantime, following the evolution and adoption of blockchain related projects we will seek additional funds within the Cardano community and beyond.

Within the Cardono space, we are already in close contact with IOHK. We work with them on the educational purposes and contents we could create in order to stay aligned with their vision and to avoid overlaps.

On the educational content, we also want to work more closely with Emurgo who already propose high quality lessons around Cardano and the Blockchain.

We going to continue to work closely with PoA team members that have experience in implementing sustainable development projects in Africa and who will use their contacts within International Institutions (i.e. EU, French Development Agency, GIZ, etc.) to gather more resources.

Evaluation plan

In order to keep track on the progresses, we would like to define with the team on what would be the most relevant indicators for evaluating the impact of our project (i.e. Number of attendees to training, papers produced, Dapps developed, Partnerships created, etc.).

We plan to provide the team/community counterparts with a detailed semester activity report and monthly brief updates.

Moreover ABCD will be an important tool in the economic development toolkit in africa that would create new job opportunities for africans, create higher wage jobs, better leverage training/educational materials from IOHK, contribute to the growth,success and adoption of blockchain technology businesses. These factors would provide the long-term metrics against which to measure the success of the Center.

Cooperation with Proof of Africa

The training centre aims at being an autonomous structure but since the founders are also involved in the Proof of Africa stakepool project, we would like to continue to run the two projects in parallel. Our main ideas undertaking this cooperation are:

⦁ rewards generated by PoA could be used to develop ABCD's activities,

⦁ PoA infrastructure (servers, relay nodes, etc.) might be made available to our developers for them to train and gain autonomy in running the Cardano network,

⦁ PoA would benefit from the activities developed by ABCD as a proof of its efficiency and reliability in creating real opportunities in Africa.

As a reminder, PoA is a stakepool which attempts to represent Africa in the Cardano ecosystem. It can be thought as a stakepool-powered adoption driver based in Africa. This initiative is positioned to contribute to the adoption of Cardano in Africa and deeply believe that it will allow African countries to not only diversify their economies but also help the continent to increase its innovation and investment attractiveness.

Achievements so far

To have a more detailed view on what PoA have done for the community so far, please have a look on our several platforms:

@poapool

poapool.com

t.me/poapool