I'll see you in the next video.
Hey guys, hey green, hey elvane, how are you guys doing?
I've just got your request to speak, it should come through soon.
Can you hear me okay Sean?
Yes, we can. How's it going?
Very well thanks, looking forward to today.
So today we are going to speak about Refi Cakesound and the relationship to EXO.
Perhaps we could start off with an origin story and how Refi Cakesound was born.
So last year, pretty much this time last year, Refi Dal gave a, or invited people from across the world to create what they called local nodes.
Which are basically led by champions who will hold events in their city around topics of web3 and sustainability.
So when I came across this, I thought this was a really, really great opportunity to catalyze a movement in Cape Town, engaging young developers in topics of web3, AI and sustainability.
So I pulled out the application form to start a local node and that was the beginning of Refi Cakesound.
At the time, I was also starting off as eco development officer at EXO.
And these two kind of streamlined quite nicely because EXO had been developing the software infrastructure to implement Refi projects through interesting tooling.
Like the Alphabond mechanism, which does outcomes based financing, software stuck for digital measurement reporting and verification of impact information.
As well as a DAO tooling kit that enables impact organizations to create DAOs and to basically decentralize decision making in sustainability oriented projects and manage project funding in a more democratic and transparent way.
So I felt it was a really great opportunity to combine something really new and fresh, which was Refi Cakesound, with something that had already been in development for a few years and already had infrastructure and tools.
I then needed some funding to actually start hosting some events and reached out to a local group of developers called the Younglings Africa.
And I see Al Vains on the call at the moment who's the founder of Younglings, which offers a program to train young software or aspiring software developers in Cape Town, in his words to become kick ass software developers.
So Refi Cakesound partnered with EXO to use the software stack as well as Younglings Africa to widen the community as well as a partnership with a group called R-Labs, which stands for reconstructed living.
They're based in the Cape Flats and offer entrepreneurial programs for young people in the area to start their own businesses and get mentorship.
So Refi Cakesound is basically a combination of these organizations and have got the mandate to grow the movement of regenerative finance in Cape Town by taking an experimental approach.
So after reaching out to these organizations, getting consents, getting them on board and aligned, we needed some funding to host some events.
So we participated in the Gitcoin funding round, I think it was the beta round, and we got a small amount of cash to get going.
And we hosted our first events where we invited leaders in the Web3 and sustainability space to speak and share their thoughts and their journeys.
In September, the 7th of September, we hosted a hackathon that focused on primarily education around the concept of tokenized impacts and what exactly is an impact.
And what are some of the challenges in Cape Town that we could use the concept of tokenized impact to create solutions and empower young developers in Cape Town.
So that's pretty much the origin story. And maybe we can speak about the hackathon that we hosted in September.
And we've got Graham here who participated. I would like to invite you up just to introduce yourself where you are at the moment.
And how you found out about ReFi Cape Town, and perhaps you could share a little bit more about your solutions that you and your team submitted as one of the winners.
Thanks, Sean. I'm Graham. I'm based in Cape Town. I've lived in South Africa all my life, so it's an area that's a country I'm very passionate about.
And the focus of the hackathon was really on solving or putting together a way that could tackle a problem facing South Africa.
And at the time, I had been working with a company called Where's My Transport, which used to create public transport datasets to help people become more informed about how they moved and the choices they made with traveling.
Because South Africa and the Global South is a very data scarce environment, particularly around things like access to digital public transport information, things like fares, frequencies, hours of operation.
So I was quite familiar with the challenges in the transport side. And my partner on the hackathon, by the name of Shen and I, are also both passionate cyclists.
And so we started looking at the overlap between cycling and access to education, which was very close to home for us.
So the challenge you identified is that in South Africa, there are many children who are either unable to get to school or spend a significant portion of their day traveling to and from school by either walking or by using modes of transport that are not very reliable.
And any of this time that is spent traveling is time that's taken away from either contributing to their households or spending time on their education during homework.
And if you think of traveling sort of 15 kilometers each day to school, with a large portion of that being walked,
it's a definite drain on energy, which takes away the learner's ability to concentrate and really focus and engage in what's happening at school.
So we have a look at XO's technology stack, and we identified that there was opportunity to use the digital measurement reporting verification systems to create carbon credits or create value that could offset the cost of transport.
And what we did is we put together an idea around how an investor could buy the digital rights to an e-bike.
The e-bike would be distributed to a learner at no cost to the learner themselves, and the bicycle would be paid for through the sale of the digital rights of the bicycle.
And the learner would then be equipped with a mode of transport they could use that was reliable, that could get them to and from school on a daily basis.
So it was the sort of core premise of it, and we played around with some ideas that could be rebuilt on that and really increase the impact that we were having.
So if you're looking at something like an electric vehicle, there are opportunities for upskilling children in sort of some basic mechanical skills to maintain and look after their bicycles, as well as potential for a lot of infrastructure for sort of charging at school, which would charge bicycles while they were at school,
but also provide energy for the schools to use during the day.
And then some wilder thinking around if we have these electric bicycles that are IoT devices, what else could those IoT devices do?
One of the ideas was that if they are already equipped with some card, they could also provide sort of localised Wi-Fi hotspots or access to internet to enable learners to access resources online, do homework online, research, get access to learning materials.
And these are things that often are not present in all households.
So we looked at a number of challenges.
So we essentially put together a pitch for our idea.
We unfortunately weren't able to start coding or developing prototypes as what's beyond our skills level.
But the exercise of thinking through a problem and looking at how we could apply technology, the creation of digital twins, the measurement reporting on actual impact was a really valuable exercise for us.
So we came second place in that hackathon.
And I have since gone on to join the XO team as the data products team lead.
And that was a really valuable experience and was essentially a big part of my onboarding.
It was kind of self-led as to understanding what XO does and what the value is and what our mission is and the kinds of impacts that we could have.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing, Graeme. I remember when I started at XO, I also participated in a hackathon, which is, yeah, it felt like I was being thrown to the deep end.
Which definitely is, I think, the best way to learn about these new concepts.
So you are a big, big option. Congratulations for all the work that you did.
Another interesting project from the hackathon was a project called Fruga Designs, which is led by Pumlani.
And that focused on advancing recycling in schools in Cape Town and creating a digital measurement reporting and verification system for managing the supply chain of waste being collected in schools and then sent to processing facilities.
As well as carbon and plastic credits linked to that, which was also a really great concept.
And then the first prize was Impact Hub, which was led by NEO, and that was essentially a tokenized impacts marketplace, which was also a really great project.
So yeah, I'm hoping that we can have more hackathons this year in Cape Town, focusing on education and empowering young people to be developers and just learn more about the impacts economy.
And yeah, prototypes and solutions get experimental. We'll have to do some more fundraising, so potentially an additional Bitcoin round.
Yeah, I also just want to express gratitude to everyone who sponsored and supported ReFi Cape Town last year, including the folks from Climate Collective, as well as from Celo.
Without your support, we wouldn't have been able to do this. So yeah, really, thanks. Thanks so much.
Yeah, so for this last year, but that ReFi Cape Town has been going in the sense that a lot of the sessions that we have have focused on a lot of sort of education and advocacy in the space, introducing people to what ReFi is, what we're trying to do, some of the technology out there,
which is, I think, that's exactly where ReFi is as an organization in a new city. And I'm really looking forward to it growing where the work that ReFi Cape Town is doing moves beyond just sort of education advocacy and ideas more towards sort of an advisory resource where we can support projects that are happening
in Cape Town and surrounding ecosystems with sort of knowledge and skill sets that the members of ReFi have, but where those projects are not being directly led by ReFi Cape Town.
I think that would be a really nice place to get to where we can, which will really help us scale the impact and work being done in the ecosystem.
Yeah, so do you mean, and so for paraphrasing, ReFi Cape Town being as advisors for projects looking to implement the MRV and tokenized impact solutions in Cape Town?
Yes, so I think there's a lot of good work and a lot of amazing projects that are out there already that aren't connected to sort of a broader ecosystem that are discovering and making mistakes and learning things every step of the way as they go.
Whereas ReFi Cape Town being connected to the global ReFi network, there's a whole lot of knowledge and resources and experience from other members of the organization as well as the body of knowledge that we're growing from our own experiences that would benefit any project that is starting in Cape Town or is already in progress.
So really helping to shortcut some of those learnings and try and position projects for the best chance of success they can have.
Also, one of my goals for this year is to really start using more and more of the XO stack and the XO tooling to create a ReFi Cape Town Marketplace,
where we can work with local organizations who are producing impact on the ground.
A big interest of mine is in food and nutrition security and regenerative food systems and composting and waste management.
So to set up projects on the ReFi Cape Town Marketplace and start measuring the impact of these projects and then creating impact tokens like carbon credits with high definition data about their origins as well as potentially methane credits.
Just to support local projects on the ground and improve the general integrity of measurement and evaluation in Cape Town and in South Africa.
I'm also really excited to continue using the dial tooling.
So we've set up the ReFi Cape Town dial using the XO software and I'm excited to invite more developers in Cape Town to reach out and to get involved with ReFi Cape Town.
Please send me a message if you hear this.
Any other questions for our last five minutes from the people who've tuned in?
I'd be more than happy to answer.
I know we've got Alvin here and Peter.
Where are you calling from maybe?
While we wait for them, I think that what you've said is really a big opportunity.
There are many social good and social justice organizations in and around Cape Town that rely a lot on narrative to communicate their work and measure impact.
So stories of what they have been doing, what they have done, case studies.
I think XO and the XO technology is really in a position to further bolster the integrity of those narratives with data, with claims.
They don't have to be hard data coming from IoT devices, but claims about work that's being done that can be interrogated and verified and presented with the narratives to really form a robust story around what has happened on the ground and impact that different organizations have made.
Yeah, for sure, Graham. I heard someone tell me the other day who runs an NGO called Ladles of Love.
He said the quality of an NGO is the quality of the data that they can produce, and that really stuck with me.
Thanks for sharing those reflections.
Peter, you tried to connect, but there's some overlay. Do you want to try again?
Alvein, I think your mic is on.
Yeah, hi, and thanks for this show and agreement. What's very refined, amazing about the past year, is how the youth was mobilized to try and solve our biggest problems.
And I look forward to more of that in the coming year. Also, maybe a closer alignment to the refined DAO itself, the origins.
Maybe if you might say something about that just in the past, just briefly about the refined DAO connection.
Sorry, I don't know what's going on, but it seems like as soon as I connect as a speaker, I can't hear anybody else.
Can you give me a thumbs up if you can hear me? I'm just going to say a few words, if you can.
I can't hear anyone, so I'm just going to say a few.
Yeah, I just want to say that I've been following Rifai Cape Town since the beginning, since you had your Bitcoin round.
And I've seen it grow and seen the traction behind it, the young people involved.
So, yeah, I'm really, really looking forward to see it evolve and go further, explore further, get more people involved, more use cases.
Yeah, really exciting. Yeah, basically, that's it.
Thanks for sharing that, Peter. Much appreciated.
Alvin, you had a question about the origins of Rifai DAO. I don't think I'm the right person to discuss how Rifai DAO was started.
Not specifically Rifai DAO's origins, but just the further collaboration between Rifai Cape Town and Rifai DAO in the coming year, and also where you aim to take that.
So, yeah, Rifai Cape Town, we're planning on integrating XO tooling and demonstrate to other local nodes how they can use this expertise to create opportunities and the MRV methodologies.
And manage themselves through the DAO tooling.
And we are also planning on doing a fundraising initiative, which I can't speak much about at the moment, but to co-raise funds for different local nodes.
Yeah, we'll share more information about that over the coming weeks, just as things get finalized.
So, yeah, really excited to collaborate with other local nodes and with Rifai DAO.
Yeah, we also want to host another hackathon sometime this year, which will collaborate with Rifai DAO.
And hopefully the guys from Celo, Senkain, Mentor Labs, and yeah, that's a little bit of a sneak peek for the year ahead.
But yeah, to anyone who's listening, please do keep an eye out for more information.
And with that, I think we are done. So thanks everyone for tuning in and for everyone who listened afterwards.
We are sending you much love and wishing you a wonderful day ahead. Until next week. Cheers, everyone.