I want to welcome everybody into our space.
Today is going to be a great time.
I'm super pumped and excited to have you all in the room.
Today we're going to have a more great time diving straight into some important stuff.
And I'm going to invite some amazing people to join me up top as speakers.
Definitely if you're a speaker, I'll definitely want you to request the microphone and definitely come up quickly.
I'm going to reserve the room but I want everybody to retweet the room.
I'm just going to pin the room up top.
So it makes it super easy for everybody who wants to just retweet the room.
So I'm just going to make it super quick and easy.
Yep, so currently if you check down right corner, you're going to see a blue button that has one written on it.
Click on that and definitely you can retweet the room from that point.
Or you can check up on the jumbotron and at that point too, you can retweet the room.
I'm just going to reserve the room quickly and expecting everybody to go ahead to retweet the room.
And yep, let's get it going!
Retreat the room! Retreat the room! Let's get it going!
So at this point, I just want to welcome everybody into this space.
And at this point, I just want to go straight to my speakers.
I see we have some amazing people up here, but before I do, I want to give quick shoutouts to our retweet fam that I see Abuka has retweeted.
I see Lou also has retweeted and I see Enukyo also has retweeted.
Much love to you for retweeting this space.
I want to throw the microphone straight to my honorable speakers.
We got Lou and we have got Tori.
And yeah, how is your day going?
Thank you for having me, having us on this stage to share our thoughts.
Good evening to everyone.
Well, it may be good evening to you.
It may be good morning or good afternoon to someone else.
I don't know, but I think Eric is ragging.
I thought Eric was ragging a little bit, but sorry, I'm going to pass it back to you.
Very happy to be here with you today.
Been looking forward to this conversation for a long time and it's only the first start.
So, we're building this community and yeah, happy to dive into it.
Yeah, I guess I'll go next.
Yeah, well, I'm super excited to be here as well.
I guess I'll introduce myself quickly.
My name is Anka Liu and I oversee ecosystem programs here at the Stella Development Foundation.
I'm super excited to kick it off.
I guess I'll have you Emmanuel lead the space a little bit.
I think we also have Emmanuel from Link here.
So, not to get confused and I think David will also join us soon.
It's really great to be here.
Thank you so much, Anka, for that amazing intro.
See you on that link and I'm glad to be here on this space channel
and to really, you know, discuss the amazing work Stella is doing.
And yeah, looking forward to the chat.
I think I was ragging at some point, but I don't know how my speakers have spoken already.
I see you guys also has Anu here spoken.
Yeah, you're saying that so well.
I am part of the developer and assistant team at CS.
Super excited to be here.
Also part of organizing ecosystem meetups in Africa this year or this month,
this couple weeks from now, specifically focusing on the Legos meetups.
I'm really excited to see some of you out there as well.
To introduce yourselves to our audience.
But please, if you just joined the space, I'm very excited to have you in this space today.
It's a backspace with Stella.
I mean, it's going to be an amazing time.
Retweet the room if you've not retweeted.
Let's get a lot of people commenting.
And, yep, let's get going.
So I'm going to throw the mic straight to Eric Cannon.
I would love that you give us a brief intro of yourself.
And, yep, what you do in the work space as well.
Nice to meet you again, Tori.
The last time we met was in 2019 in Kegali.
I'm based currently in Accra, Ghana.
I'm building stuff in the space.
Well, I don't code, but I am happy to work with these interesting smart people in the space,
focusing on building talent ecosystem, building ecosystem in Africa.
Currently, we have done a few things in the space,
working with a couple of amazing communities in the space.
And interestingly, we connected with Stella again.
I remember back in 2018, my startup was the first in Africa
to build something with Stella.
And I remember in Meridian, conference in Meridian,
in Mexico City on the 2nd and 4th of November 2019,
the KBS wallet was used as one of the references for Stella utility in Africa.
But just by the way, we fast-forward that startup field along the line.
We failed forward, and today we are still working in the space,
working with amazing people.
So happy to be here this evening and to welcome Stella team in Accra,
And we're looking forward to engaging Stella and what plans and ambitions
they have in the space for builders, especially in the context of Africa.
And, yep, you're an amazing person.
I mean, the kind of impact that you're throwing into the Web3 space in Africa
And I'm super excited to have you up top here as a speaker
to contribute to this wonderful conversation that we're going to have today.
Okay, I'm going to go straight to you.
I want you to give us a brief intro of yourself.
Yeah, it's actually just Anke.
But yeah, I'm super excited.
Thank you so much for introducing all.
So my name is, as I mentioned, is Ankelyu.
I work on ecosystem programs here at the Stella Development Foundation,
mostly dedicated to the Feller Community Fund,
which is an open application awards program
boosting development of projects building on Stella.
So actually, we have a lot of...
I think Emmanuel here is also building on SCF and Anukia here.
Also, like, works a lot on setting up a lot of initiatives
to get a lot of projects into the SCF.
So it's quite wildly collected, even Tori, I think.
I'm sure she'll introduce herself later.
She also has submitted and was awarded by SCF.
So it's pretty exciting to work on such a program.
And yeah, looking forward to connect with everyone here in the space.
And we are super excited to have you.
Super pumped to have you as well.
Brief intro about yourself.
Just for those that joined the space.
My name is Everest Tamano.
I'm the CEO and co-founder at LingQ.
LingQ is building web papers with a payment infrastructure for Africa.
Really started off this journey trying to just figure out a way
to solve issues around payments on the continent, starting off in Nigeria.
And we just understood that it couldn't be solved
in normal sense, because traditional rules.
And just really trying to solve this issue.
We discovered Stella sometime in 2021.
And got into building, really just iterating, testing out.
It's been a really great resource.
So today, like Anka had already mentioned, we are SCF winners.
So SCF stands for Stella Community Fund.
So basically, you have an idea for a real case.
You come to the Stella network, you build it.
You gain a little bit of traction.
You're supported by the community through grants.
And yeah, it's been really awesome.
So at LingQ, we basically help businesses that are looking to scale
Basically, leverage payment rules.
Either bank as far as more local payment rules, basically.
And then in the parallel, we're building actively on the blockchain,
the infrastructure for liquidity to local stablecoins to yields
that basically would interface as real case value for our business users
on the other side that can serve better services to their customers.
So really great to be here.
I'm pumped to talk more about all the amazing stuff we're doing together
with the SCF to build a real case.
I'm super excited to have you.
I might see a new here wrapped up, but we got Tori up top.
So Tori, I mean, a brief intro about yourself.
And yep, let's get going.
Yes, I am with the Stella Development Foundation now.
I am in our product organization, which means that I get to design
and build really amazing products that get open sourced
and put out there for the community to use.
I lead our humanitarian efforts and bulk payments for enterprises
with the stellar disbursement platform.
All of that is amazing stuff.
But before that, I was, depending on how you look at it,
I was one of the dinosaurs or the old great men with Eric back in the day.
I started building on stellar in 2018 with a digital wallet
that was built for migrants in East Africa to start.
It was called Leaf Global Fintech.
We started in Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya,
helping people to move money across mobile networks
and across borders on stellar.
We built it out for smartphones and non-smartphones.
So we had a U.S.S.D. application first,
and that's what mostly people used.
And then we actually scaled it across the continent,
got acquired by a U.S.S.D. company,
and rebranded to Boss Money.
So now the wallet is Boss Money,
and it's still continuing, still successful,
and then eventually I moved over to Stellar after that.
I see we got a new here coming back up.
And yeah, I don't know if you have the mic now.
If you could also give us an intro of yourself.
You know here, are you, are you audible now?
I know that she's currently on the plane,
so there might not be enough connectivity there.
Yeah, I don't think that has a great connection.
So before we dive in, I mean,
what we're going to talk about today is,
it's going to be, like, super, super important.
And I want everybody to retweet this room
to bring a lot of people in so that we can get more eyes,
you know, on the meetups happening in Africa,
as well as, you know, on the Stellar ecosystem in general.
So guys, I want you all to retweet the room,
check down where Connor, you can retweet through that
and also check on the jumbotron.
I'm going to reset the room in three seconds.
I'm going to reset the room in three seconds.
I'm going to reset the room in three seconds
to get you all to do the retweet.
And, yep, let's get going.
And that is an amazing time.
You're going to have okay.
So at this point in time,
I want to just go straight to the point.
I know we have more OGs in the space,
as well as we expect to have, you know,
as well as newbies in the space.
So I know people might be thinking about, okay,
I mean, people might ask themselves,
I know Stellar is an OG blockchain way back.
And for me, it's been an amazing contribution
as well to my journey in Web 3
and in learning blockchain technology and everything.
But at this point in time,
I would just want to pause the microphone straight
to either Tori or Anka to pick it up
and tell us something brief about
what the Stellar ecosystem entails briefly
Yeah, Tori, do you want to take it?
Maybe I'll speak to the blockchain side.
You can speak to the ecosystem side.
Yeah, so as you mentioned,
Stellar is one of the older blockchains out there.
We've been around since 2014,
which means it is very tested, very reliable,
and it was actually built really different
than a lot of those OG blockchains.
So the reason that I love Stellar
and started building on it originally
was because it's always been super fast, super cheap,
no environmental impact like some of the other chains.
And so what I love is that Stellar started out
looking at this problem of cross-border payments
and how expensive they are.
We've expanded to a lot more than that now,
but that was kind of its base, was like,
how do we make cross-border payments
in emerging markets effective and efficient?
And so Stellar is really known for being fast and cheap,
like less than five seconds for transactions to process.
You can do about 10,000 transactions for one US cent
in cost and network fees,
but it's also really good for asset issuance,
which has become a cool part of the story over time.
So most of the activity on Stellar
is not actually in its native currency,
which is Lumens or XLM if you've heard of that,
but most of the volume is in stablecoins,
like USDC or a digital euro.
So you're able to actually issue assets on Stellar
So like for my previous company,
we had Kenyan Shilling stablecoins,
we had Rwandan stablecoins.
For each country, we had that local stablecoin.
So I really love that piece of it,
but it's also very flexible.
And now just like literally this month,
we are releasing a new smart contracts platform
so that all developers have flexibility
to build what they need to build on the network
and really expand into that DeFi space.
But I think Anka, maybe you can talk about
some of the new and exciting things.
Yeah, I guess I'll pick it up from there.
Yeah, and so like, you know,
to build on this innovation and really allow people to,
to leverage this new smart contracts
and these like stablecoins,
like we have a number of the ecosystem programs
Like, as I mentioned, most notably,
like the Stellar Community Fund,
which is an open application awards program
that really supports the growth and development
of these developers and startups building on Stellar,
but now also our new native smart contracts platform.
And so it's quite interesting,
different from some of these typical
foundation grant programs,
SCF really draws an input from the community
for also like award allocation and governance.
And actually like last year,
we supersized SCF to really like hone in
on this new development for Sorbonne,
our new smart contracts platform.
And we actually awarded over $13 million
in excellent to over 170 projects.
So there's a lot of opportunity
in the space that we're trying to hone in on.
I see also that maybe Emmanuel and David
that recently joined can speak a bit about their journeys
on the Stellar Community Fund last year
and going in this year as well.
But that's kind of the main,
the main program that's driving all of this.
And then I guess around it are a lot of like great initiatives
and these three meetups are one of it.
And we, I think like starting,
I mean, especially starting this year,
we want to see it to collaborate more closely
with local communities and also like organizing any meetups
and maybe boot camps and any type of like accelerator,
maybe incubator type of project programs
that we are really interested in.
So yeah, I guess I'll can go later into a bit
of the meetups and have what they're for,
but it's a little bit an overview
of all of the different programs that we have.
We also have a really vibrant Discord
that I encourage anyone to go through
and all the events that we're currently hosting
with these partners are also on there.
So I know that currently we have a core series going on
So there's a lot of things kind of in the ecosystem
building a space that we're working on to really hone in on.
Yeah, I hope that that gave a bit of an overview.
Yep, definitely that is super detailed.
And I think that's amazing.
But as you made reference to Ibuka,
I would really like to know how they also building
Yep, so Ibuka back to you,
brief also on what you're doing in this ecosystem.
In fact, the seller ecosystem has just really been amazing
I can say something about, you know,
just really given the overview of our journey here
and how we've actively built on seller.
So this training back to sometime in 2021,
we're just trying to build sort of a,
trying to build an application.
It's built out the first MVP of it.
We just wanted to build, you know,
an app that could work like Transfer Wide for Africa.
But, you know, we kept on struggling.
And now I'm struggling in the sense of just finding those key,
you know, partners or providers or banks
or, you know, officials that could just provide
some of the number of, you know,
it's not like 2024 or 2023.
Now you have books or free liquidity service,
stable coins, all you have.
Those things just didn't really exist as much back then,
at least here in our space.
And then, you know, I think part of my research,
I was on YouTube one of those days,
and I just saw, I think I saw just like a panel,
just very similar to the top panel we're having right now.
You know, they had this panel with some of the builders
that were trying to build, you know,
a piece of infrastructure around, you know, stable coins,
Like, you know, sorry, I didn't even mention already
for Nigeria, you know, right off the Stella alley.
And, you know, I really picked out interest.
I really loved the concept that we didn't really need.
It sort of made international payments, right,
in a kind of way where you didn't need to be so cumbersome.
Again, it could be very local, right?
Just really, you have all these multiple currencies
that can be tokenized and issued on the blockchain,
and then you just really handle the licensing,
the regulation on the ground locally,
to really make, you know, payments smoothly.
And then, you know, we got interest, we issued assets,
you know, Stella, they're building around it,
got into the Stella Africa boot camp sometime in 2022,
beginning, and that's where our journey really kicked off, right?
But we held it alongside these guys.
I think DFS Labs was really amazing.
I think just for one week, but we learned a lot from it.
You know, that catapulted us into, you know, the STF,
which is Stella Community Fund,
sometime in, I think, April of the same year.
And then from there, you know,
that just really been progressing.
We had two-time STF winners, by the way,
and then, you know, got to Maria and working with,
and, you know, working with businesses and everything.
So now, the beauty of Stella is you're not just building,
for example, at Link, I already said we build, you know,
we purely from just, you know,
just trying to build a consumer-facing app,
because, like I said, the issue is that infrastructure
So we really had to become infrastructure,
but we solved it differently.
We're not just building infrastructure
that nobody's going to use.
We're working, we understand, okay,
companies, consumers will actually need to work closely with,
you know, businesses on the ground,
the whole international businesses,
they're trying to build different use cases,
and thank God for Soroban now.
He's not only limited to cross-border payments.
We cannot think about yields.
We cannot think about savings platforms and everything else.
But the beauty of Stella is you find an image problem
You have to support the community.
And aside from that, you have these ecosystem companies,
like very similar to what we're doing
in different regions of the world.
They're looking to either, you know,
expanding to your market,
or you're trying to find a way to expand into their market,
right, to figure out everything about licenses,
to figure out everything about, you know, liquidity,
and you're able to plug in, right, able to expand.
So I guess even with the meet-ups
that are happening right now, right,
I think this just ruined the right time.
You know, there were no better than this could happen, right?
But I remember coming to, I traveled back to Nigeria
sometime last year, and I was different with three meet-ups.
And I'm talking about Stella.
I'm talking about some implementations,
because when we talk about a link, for example,
I can probably just show you link to business dashboard.
But when I'm talking about API,
I don't know if I have to show you how it actually works, right?
And then I'm showing folks how it works through time.
And on the front end, you're seeing nothing crypto, right?
You're seeing nothing crypto.
It doesn't seem like your normal remittance
are sending dollar to Nigeria,
send Nigeria and Nigeria to the U.S.
I do all those processes in front of them,
and then I open up the blockchain,
and I'm like, yeah, that transaction, right?
And I'm like, yeah, that transaction, right?
I think when it's a meeting, I'm like,
I'm not talking about this kind of design
that would nothing happen yet, right?
And you're straight side down.
I'm like, Stella has been doing this for so many years.
So even with the whole hype around stablecoins,
not just fiat-backed stablecoins,
not just USD ones, like non-USD stablecoins
as well for FX and everything,
I'm like, Stella has been doing this for a very, very long time.
It's just that probably the market
is reacting to these things now better
because there is a real need for this.
So now with the introduction of Soroban,
for example, Lync assets, you know,
cross-border payments use case with infrastructure
and then with working with business exclusion,
we're also building on Soroban
through one of our photos called Wavy.
It's a very, very, very long time.
Working with business exclusion.
We're also building on Soroban
through one of our photos called Wavy.
So it's a fully on-chain P2P protocol
which will be released once, you know,
the maintenance of Soroban has been completed.
So really, really amazing use cases.
the journey building here has been amazing.
I'm looking forward, at least personally,
to, you know, the meet-up that's happening.
I will not be the one in Ghana or in Kenya,
but definitely the one in Lagos.
Looking forward to meeting with other builders,
looking at various use cases they could solve
from, aside from remittances,
or could without payments, news, lending.
Really amazing use cases that can be built
on this blockchain, you know, for scale.
Yeah, so that's not there for now.
I mean, that's super detailed.
And yeah, I think I've learned a lot
about what you're building.
And yeah, I know that these kind of solutions
is what we need in Africa,
because I think I have this Web2 founder.
KB, who is also building a cross-border payment system
by using the Web2 million.
So having a whole structure like what we have
with respect to Stellar blockchain,
I think Web2 companies who want to really leverage
on Web3 when it comes to cross-border payments
and having systems that really support that
could definitely look into Stellar.
And you are just saying everything
that has to do specifically to that.
I don't know, Tori, if you would like to add something brief
to the ecosystem before we move into the events side.
I mean, everyone is welcome.
So if you have a problem that you need to solve,
then check out the Stellar ecosystem.
And we're very excited about growth in Africa
We know that there have been a lot of independent builders,
but I think we're going to see more and more value
when those people come together
and discuss the problems that they're trying to solve.
Because many times they're similar.
You're having similar hurdles that you're facing.
I know that I found that in my conversations
with other founders across the continent.
And it was a big help for me.
So I would just encourage anyone who's interested,
check out the documents, check out the community,
and know that there is a thriving ecosystem here for you.
So before we go to talking about the event,
I would like to go straight to Eric Annan.
There were three ecosystems in Ghana
with respect to in Africa in general,
as well as the builders' ecosystem.
I would like him to also talk briefly about that, Eric,
and what even BAG stands to do as well.
Thank you to the Stellar team
for highlighting the ethos and the foundation of Stellar.
I think Stellar is an amazing ecosystem,
been in the space for a while.
I personally have had the opportunity
to interact with the Stellar team at a very high level.
I remember the lady that we work with invited us to Mexico,
which I had the opportunity to go back to my two other colleagues
So I particularly have been very afraid of Stellar foundation
for a while in respect to the African ecosystem.
Recently, I was opportunity to speak at Istanbul,
at Dev Connect, at a platform.
and I'm going to make the same case on this space.
I think the blockchain technology is an amazing
I believe it is a public good,
and I still believe it is a great technology
that would shape their face of humanity.
I also think that the technology is being built
by people other than, mostly other than Africans,
where they are just building it for the sake of a nice to have,
not really something that would drastically change anything in the West,
but unfortunately, the areas that this technology is needed the most,
I'm talking about Africa, I'm talking about Southern,
I'm in the Latin area, part of South Asia,
where this technology could potentially alter
and shape the way people interact with value.
I strongly believe that this protocols,
not only Stellar, but in general the blockchain ecosystem globally,
have not really paid major attention to Africa,
and I think it's a major concern.
And so I'm happy to see that today,
Stellar is making a fast move in 2024,
and not just a team, but the major C-level,
the CEO and some of their team coming to click major cities.
And I'm sure they are following the data.
I mean, today, if you're looking for blockchain use cases,
cryptocurrency, Nigeria come number one.
You just ask Google or GPT, they'll tell Nigeria.
The second place they'll tell is Kenya.
The next place may be Pagana or South Africa or Uganda
or Zimbabwe or Zambia or Togo.
The data is there, data don't lie,
and everybody knows that data,
once you follow the data, you cannot make mistakes.
I look forward to see what is the blueprint.
Before you say, oh, what's the plan you have for Africa?
This time around, if you don't have any plan for Africa,
I'm sure that you do not really aspire to becoming a leader
in this beginning ecosystem.
And for me, I think the ecosystem has grown
from the days of ICO in 2017, 2017, 2018,
to the people who are more focused on building real tools,
tools that will solve real need.
For example, Tori built an amazing tool back in Rwanda.
And I was so surprised that it was acquired
because she thought about the need.
She was in the continent.
She understood the problem in the continent.
she knew that the blockchain could not really transform
or alter anything in America.
I mean, apart from ETF, apart from speculation,
apart from investment, right?
But she didn't understand and live in the continent.
She was able to build solutions that mattered the most.
No wonder it was, I mean, she was able to get acquired as it
and to the building real tools with Stella.
So I believe people like, I mean, Tori being now with Stella,
she will be able to really lead a more empathetic,
a more future ecosystem to build,
and collaborate with the local players.
And for me, I look forward to a much more ambitious,
much more intentional approach to the continent
rather than just looking for users.
People are building stuff from Kenya, Lagos.
I mean, across the continent, I always, in fact,
I was even surprised to know that even Somalia,
people are thinking about blockchain.
So the continent, 54 countries, it's not a country.
It's 54 countries with a diverse multi-dimensional market dynamics.
And so approaching the continent with one template or one approach
or one direction may not work as it may work in America or in Canada
or in China, for example.
Africa is a continent that needs a very intentional approach.
And the dynamics are different.
So it's a welcoming news.
We're looking forward to welcoming Stella tomorrow
and then Lagos and Nairobi.
And I believe by the time they go back to San Francisco,
the story in the Stella ecosystem really will be shaped
by their visit to Africa.
And I really sad with you 100% on we needing blockchain companies
as well as Stella to come into the continent
and then to really support the builders on the continent
to contribute to really providing real solutions
to real problems that we have on the continent.
And, yep, I think one of the major ones is cross-border payment.
So, guys, check out the Jumbotron.
I pinned a tweet from the Stella account
that speaks briefly about what Stella Network is about.
And it's just mind-blowing to connect, not just, you know,
via online, but come IRL in Africa to engage with builders
to make sure that we have these builders, I mean,
have shared their problems with you
and see how best you could also support them
to use the Stella blockchain, you know, to address this challenge.
So I just want to go straight to...
I want you to talk to us about the events coming up.
I know tomorrow is going to be in Ghana,
16th is going to be in Nigeria,
and as well as the last one is going to be on the 19th,
So, Rif, what is this event about and what should we expect?
And thank you so much, Tori and Emmanuel and Eric,
for shedding more light on everything.
It's really inspiring to hear everyone's stories.
And yeah, I am totally for dedicated support,
and that's also what we're about in 2024.
I'm building a whole new ecosystem programs team,
so super excited to sit down with you, Eric, in East Denver.
Maybe we can talk to some of the plants.
Great, yeah, about the meetup.
So the Stella Development Foundation is hosting
One, the first one, as you mentioned, in Accra,
which is tomorrow, hosted by the Blockchain Builders Association
of Ghana, like with Eric and yourself.
So super excited for that.
It starts at... well, check-in opens at 6,
so we hope everyone will show up, run 7.
And then we'll have a nice speech as well
by our CEO, Danelle Dixon, at around, I think, 7.30.
So mostly it's going to be really good networking.
There's some good old-fashioned, in real life,
conversation, connection, and collaboration.
So definitely if you're interested in building or tinkering with
or interested in knowing more about Stella,
definitely we'd love to have you,
and please also spread the word.
So that's the first meetup.
We also have one in Lagos on the 16th,
also I believe from like 6.30 to 9 p.m. Lagos time.
So if you are based in Lagos,
definitely sign up to the registration.
I know that we got a little bit oversubscribed,
so looking to approve folks soon.
So definitely if you're still interested, please sign up.
We are organizing, and so actually Anukia is the lead on this.
Like, shout-out to Anukia.
She's doing some great work with the ZINA team,
who couldn't make it today, but who are helping us host.
And also Emmanuel is sourcing some folks to come,
and yeah, super excited for that one as well.
Also like our CEO, well, like they are going to like all the three meetups.
So yeah, and then the last one is in Nairobi on the 19th.
And actually like, I don't think he is here,
but David from Honeycoin is helping us host in the antler space.
So it's very exciting to, yeah, to kind of have that as well.
Similar vibe, people show up around 7 or 6 or 7,
and then we have on the speech by the NEL.
So mostly it's just networking.
I think like these three meetups, they're really,
you know, we want people to kind of take advantage
of these like opportunities to connect our ecosystem in real life
and kind of meeting people where they are, meeting our builders where they are.
We have a growing community in these three cities,
and yeah, we'd love to see folks show up.
I think this can be a really great first initiative to connect the community.
I think we'll start to want to look into like maybe hosting some like hackathons
or build weeks or hacker houses or any type of bootcamps to really foster the space.
SCF, the Solid Community Fund, is open like for everyone to always submit,
but it's definitely approaches that we noticed that to really work locally
and to really connect builders through education,
as well as through like project support that really help builders
kind of go into the space with the right ideas and solving the right problems.
Yeah, so very excited about that.
If there's any specific questions, I'm happy to take them.
But for now, like these meetups are just really meant to connect the local ecosystem.
And also, we are looking to meet new builders that are interested in the space.
Yeah, maybe let me just add on that and say it goes both ways, right?
So we are equally excited to learn from the people coming to the events, the participants.
It's not just about coming so that you can learn about Stellar.
Like, this is the opportunity to show up, show out, bring your skills,
bring your questions, and show the Stellar team what is happening in each of these countries.
We know that there are so many exciting projects that we don't even know about yet,
that builders have been working on, and that we might be able to help with,
and we want to support, but we can't do that unless we know about them.
So, I mean, honestly, these meetups, we should have been doing them for many years.
It's just been on, like, individuals to do that for themselves.
And so we're really excited about the opportunity to do this.
But one of the things that I'm most excited about is for our leadership team at the Stellar Development Foundation
to see all of the amazing things that are happening across Africa.
So don't miss that opportunity.
Please come and know that our team is very open.
We love questions. We love pushback. We love challenges.
So if we need to be doing something better, come and tell us.
And remember that at the end of the day, our mission is to create equitable access
to the global financial system.
We do that through everyday financial services.
Like, we should be your people. We should be together.
So please do come out and show us everything you've got.
We're really excited to see it.
I am so excited and so pumped about this meetup that's coming up.
And, yep, if you're in Ghana, definitely you have...
I know definitely people have applied to attend this event invitation
normally for the venue and everything is added to when your invitation is approved.
But, yep, it's an open event. Definitely pass through.
Yeah, we're going to make a tweet about it with our main account.
But I'm excited for what's coming up and the whole focus on builders.
I think that is super exciting.
So I see we got Guild Network up top and...
Oh, oh, oh, they got rocked out.
Okay, I wish you come back up.
I would like to take questions from...
and I'll be throwing up at...
It's an amazing time and I know you're having a great time with yourself.
If you can't come up as a speaker, you can definitely put your questions in the comments.
You're going to see a blue button that has apparently has seven written on it.
You can have your questions in there.
I'm going to read it so our speakers can answer that.
And also, I think my last question is going to be the general dream for Africa.
I think this is something that I really want to know.
I know you've spoken about supporting builders and everything,
but in the long term, what should Africans expect from the Stellar blockchain?
I'm going to start with Anka and then I'm going to go to Tori.
Yeah, I think Tori will be great.
And Emmanuel will also be great to speak about this
because I don't want to have it only from like a Stellar Development Foundation perspective,
but also more from the Stellar ecosystem.
Since the Stellar ecosystem needs to know what they would like to build.
But yeah, I think from our standpoint, I'm not going to say ideal
because I feel like I don't know enough as of now and I would love to learn more.
And I recently started going on this journey.
But I would love to really dive in on supporting local builders and local solutions
with the Stellar Community Fund and really find local teams,
have them come on board on the Stellar ecosystem and have learned about.
Oh, I hear some interesting music.
Oh, I guess it's good now.
Okay, well, to kind of continue, try it with SCF and with all the initiatives
and all the bookends and hackathons that we, in collaboration with a lot of these third parties
and organizations locally in the space,
would really love to see more builders being supported
and locally and having a lot of teams building really impactful solutions on Stellar.
So yeah, that is kind of my dream for like this year.
I'll let Tori speak about maybe a bit more about like overarching kind of plans
and like also what she is doing with like the aid program
and with the Disbursement Program.
And I would love to like learn Emmanuel's insights as well.
Yeah, happy to pick up on that.
So a very, very short answer from my Stellar hat,
which is we want to equip builders to solve their own problems where they are done.
That's true anywhere in the world.
Speaking more from a personal dream side for Africa,
the eventual goal is financial inclusion for everyone, right?
So there's a pretty predictable cycle to get there.
You start with payments, you move into savings,
you move into loans, you move into more sophisticated products
like insurance and investment and all of that stuff.
We were still pretty early in that pipeline,
I think across the continent for blockchain-based solutions.
So I want to see Stellar be a much bigger part of those conversations.
If we know what it takes to get people to a point where their long-term financial health is guaranteed,
they feel good about their day-to-day lives and the future of their family
and their wealth for generations.
Like if that's where we're going, Stellar can be part of that conversation,
but we have to be intentional or it just will never happen
and people won't be able to capitalize on those opportunities.
Even if the technology is there and it's free and it's open source, they have to know about it.
So that's a personal frustration of mine is when I talk to people at events
and they say, Stellar? I've never heard of Stellar. What is Stellar?
And most often they think it's Stella, like S-T-E-L-L-A, Stella.
And I'm like, no, no, no, Stellar with an R.
And so I want to get past that conversation
and move to a point where people are using this open source technology
to solve the problems in their environment through that cycle.
And it's only going to get more important as cross-border flows of funds
and cross-border migration becomes more and more common.
We saw it slow down during COVID with people when borders were closed,
but even when borders are closed, money moves
and we need to be able to support that really, really efficiently.
Yeah, thanks, Tori. I'm so sorry. I fell for the interruption.
Sometimes I get ragged out and I have to leave and come back sometimes.
It's actually like starting a space comes with that sound.
But yeah, I want to go straight to Obukat.
What is your long-term plan for Africa as well as a build-out on the continent?
Yeah, let's get it going.
Awesome. I guess, Marik, can everyone hear me?
I think, I guess Tori touched a lot on some of the points
I would have wanted to talk about just to touch on it.
At least for us, one thing ultimately wants to be,
we want to build a global payments network, right?
And when you think about a global payments network,
you're thinking about the infrastructure,
You're thinking about what kind of blockchain are you building,
this global payments network on top.
And just keeping behind your mind that emerging markets and economies
like Nigeria, for example, and even Africa, right,
will really move to become really blockchain-based economies.
It's already looking that way, right?
We've already seen stats that are really coming out.
So I think for us at Link, we're really looking at the time and place
where all this infrastructure that's being built is being built now.
You have builders that are trying to solve real issues
on the consumer-facing side doing that.
You have builders trying to build for other businesses,
leveraging the blockchain without all the complexities.
So I think one of the major things we've sort of seen,
and I always think some of the things we sort of take differently at Link,
is everyone is really excited when you're here.
We're 3, we're 3, or you're here,
you sort of have the non-custodial wallet,
you have to connect to this protocol.
But in Africa, I feel like even though we have,
even compared to the overall population,
just a very few set of people who really want to get the wallet
and connect to a protocol, if I'm being honest today.
So one sees an interlayer where you can still sort of build products
that sort of define what you want to do in a decentralized manner,
but at the same time, it's very, very easy and accessible for anybody to use.
For example, I keep referencing Bins.
My mom is probably in her fifties, for example.
She uses the Bins app, and she doesn't know
she's using a non-custodial wallet.
So those kind of use cases we're looking for.
So at Link, every time we're thinking about infrastructure
towards our road to build a global payments network,
starting off in Africa, we're thinking about how we can build our solutions,
still all made for what exists today.
So from remittances, now with the introduction of Sorbam,
there's some cool use cases we're building,
even with on and off-ramps that seem very popular today, right?
Just finding a way where we can sort of
reduce these complexities with the power of the blockchain, right?
Where everything is being built,
the solutions are being made available,
I think it's from my co-hosts.
Okay, let me remove Eric as a co-host.
Ibuka, keep it off going.
Yeah, Ibuka, you can keep it off.
All right, it keeps me back, but okay, it's fine now.
I know I stopped, but like,
you also really summarize, right?
We're just looking at a future where
across various industries on the continent,
we can sort of build out this infrastructure, right?