Understanding the East African Ecosystem - David Lumala

so we're going to be you know having a Q&A session right about now on understanding the East African ecosystem the East African ecosystem in person of David lumala a round of applause for him please I do hope I pronounce that correctly all right do have your seat please can I have another mic all right good afternoon everyone my name is engineer David rumala I'm from gampala Uganda my second time in Nigeria it's a pleasure to be here the movies that we watched back in the day surely didn't disappoint so I grew up on chin literature umadi um so many other Nigerian authors that usually model the kind of English we speak even as we speak so anyway um on a professional note I'm a software engineer by profession I'm particularly a blockchain software architect so when you talk about web 3 I have a purely different perspective and picture because you talk of the DBS has talked about marketing and everything but me I look at the protocol layer and level of stuff um things about consensus node structure infrastructure you know that is my line of work the other pieces you you know you you import if you are building up so that is my line of work majorly I have a Keen Eye for secure protocols and then focus on privacy because I realize so many of the things that we do in the modern world especially if you're online if you post out a tweet the moment you click post you lose control of that like it's no longer yours so I'm so much of that privacy focused person the king eye on secure protocols having a king eye on secure protocols thank you for having me in Nigeria thank you so much thank you so um we're looking at you know understanding the East African ecosystem and personally I've seen like web three um in Kenya and Uganda it's the community there I think it's the only other really large community that I know of in Africa I'll say that I know of because like probably a lot more so um the question I have with me right here says you know what how does the ecosystem what's the current state of the web3 ecosystem of the web3 community in East Africa all right so East Africa is really broad if you've been Keen we are we began as three member states remember it used to be Uganda Tanzania and Kenya now we've added Burundi Rwanda South Sudan even the DRC um and um I think Ethiopia the work is in the pipe so I'm talking about a population um you people have 220 when I check population in Nigeria so I'm talking about a gross total of 350 million people when I talk about East Africa so if you've been Keen many companies are pivoting to having their Investments at least a piece of Nairobi as a as as a town as a capital in Kenya you notice uhuh so that is a picture into the into the future like a glimpse because um they realize this is a whole kind of New Market that is not yet tapped into and there is need or Demand on the global skill that everyone should have a part you know be a part of that equation or whatever is to come in the future so getting to her question about the state of you know web 3 in in um communities in East Africa the the the spirit is that you know is Bing like something coming out of the ground like initially it had been slow because of uh wh speak about here you only speak English at least when you speak English everyone will click people in speak French people in South Sudan speak Arabic as an official language people in um Ethiopia speak amaric not English not you know they are local language throughout so in Kenya Uganda and tanzan in Tanzania people don't speak English they speak pah like it is an official language you can speak an English word and everyone is angas like they don't know anything so that is the the the the the kind of that is how split we were but now the language of of of technology is always English if you don't it's very hard to go to even in Japan for them to communicate with the we the outside people who don't speak Japanese they have to communicate in English so we realize that actually much as we had our differences in terms of you know locality and everything adopting English much as it is colonial or whatever it is but we are part of a broader scheme and sphere of the international setting so having English as a language has enabled us and everyone to level up especially if you're living in the te space uh right from campus and University level so in a nutshell the spirit is growing we are advocating for better regulation and policy because you can't do anything without you know favorable policy if it is there just to PR for you anyway so we are getting there Kenya is ranked number I think number okay someone has taken us has taken us over in Kenya South Koreans are ranked number one in peer-to-peer transactions now globally South Korea back in the day used to be Kenya like a year or two ago but that shows you how close we are or how you know established we are in the space all right thank you so much for that um I mean you spoke of you people coming to invest in East Africa and we've seen that if you're in the space um hear a lot about East Africa investment and you know people coming to East Africa so you know the question now is what is the most prominent use case and what is the how is it being utilized I I would say for example in Nigeria a lot of our Solutions are in like the financial industry we have a lot of Solutions in finance other space but like a lot of it is in finance and on boarding in East Africa what would you say is the most prominent you know use case or ization of blockchain Technology all right so just like it is a standard across the globe everything relating to blockchain fast has a root in finance in some way the other a token or coin or you know remittance or anything so I would I would veryy much say still Finance ranks number one in East Africa because we've been having you know many incumbrances and challenges in terms of getting money into our borders you know I always read stories in Nigeria where you have um unofficial us to NRA ratees a black market rate and then the official black market rate like I wonder what usually happens or why should that why should the case be like that but similarly on the other side of the east coast of Africa we we have similar T because I I I feel we must reserve a right to privacy like I told you I'm I'm a privacy Advocate and therefore no sniffing no you know unnecessary overreach would be welcome in someone's finances so that's why we are opting for or mostly blockchains are opted for to do transactions that would otherwise cause alarms in Banks and official institutions so that is the number one case the other thing that is uh upcoming I don't know if the case is the same here as well but there's so much of you know pivoting towards green culture you talk about climate change and everything so everything is trying is they're trying to do nature facing projects so we are trying in as much and East Africa is green I've seen some Northern parts of Nigeria desert you know on the map and East Africa is green so people realize that actually the green or the vegetation could further be a resource in its own it's a mineral un it into so using technology to there's a whole green Africa carbon carbon initiative something like that that is tokenizing trees across the seven countries of East so that is another project that is coming up then another one those slow is adoption of uh real world assets like real estate especially in uptown Uptown environments you know the way you see like here you see VI that style of living yeah okay okay I I think I think there's a lot of similarities now in like the way we use or adopt blockchain technology and that brings me to another question um you know if there's anything I think miracle was talking about you know regulation being a really serious problem uh in terms of blockchain adoption I think it's everywhere but specifically for East Africa how is the regulation part of things because the few things I've heard it's it's a bit better compared I don't know I've heard it a bit better compared to Nigeria but I want to get you know the the answer from the aboutou how is regulation over there and what are the challenges in terms of Regulation you bring up a very concerning kind of topic because earlier in the discourse I mentioned that without proper favorable policy you can't do anything they can criple you the powers that be so I'll give you three cases for STS um I've happened to live in Kenya I've happened to work in Uganda I've I I happen to stay in Randa for some time so I want to take those three um um use cases to answer that question at least you know they are more Vi they're more open and vibrant to talk about that aspect at least in the broad daylight so Kenya as a first use case um it so happened that uh you've been seeing events happening about how they wanted their president to go a newly elected president so these people just woke up one day and say you know we are fed up of finance bill and so many things you know internally you know how governments be so I cannot you know father give you but then and most importantly you live in one that does you know so many of those things so um there there had been all these startups scoping up and then they they used to be limited they were CS I may say so people realize that actually it is them to drive that to to cause a to call a call to make a call for regulation so they put pressure on government because they were people who are what do you use what is your how do you get money from from your sim card to naira here what service ours is mobile money you know you have your money on your line like your number and then you get cash so M mobile money so that kind of service uhuh so in case I had I had received payment in crypto I have to off ramp now like to get my ugan Shilling or Kenyan Shilling so what the powers that b did that side was to do away with all mobile money servicing all operators getting um shouldn't were told or were stopped from giving money like government issued money to any crypto holder or transactor if I if I may say you know what that means uh to someone who is working in an online economy you are totally off because you'll get you your usdc usdt but then you can't have the Shilling you want after all the grocery store doesn't take the usdt anyway so that was that was Kenya similarly we are copy Cuts in Uganda a few months later the same thing happened uh in Randa they are they are more welcoming but then they give this friendly face but be behind the scenes they are total Hypocrites I don't know if you also know so so we realize that there must be a collective effort from the all industry stakeholders and players that maybe we should engage these people educate them so that we can have a leveled ground and then agree on the agree then disagree on the disagreeables like we should strike a balance perhaps so in Kenya um the Parliament and uh they they we call it s here they have a CMA Capital markets Authority something to to regulate that so they said okay we are going to draft up a bill but then we need to have your input first make your form of the bill and then we make ours and then we shall see how to harmonize which is what that that is a process as we speak in Uganda on the other hand I told you a copy cut just want to look at the models in Dubai in the UK and then maybe we can work it out but we are still actively engaging them regardless so so in Kenya rather in uh in Randa uh so much of policy is is is driven by foreigners so the locales people are always recipients of I'm telling you from experience because I've been there so I told you they show a different face but not in bad way not in I'm not talking ill about them but that is what reality is so relatively I would say we are better roof than Nigeria because I when I look at the policy here and you know cases of people arrested because they came to give Clarity and then one disappears you know that story right all right thank you thank you so much um I mean when it comes to regulation that's a whole a whole topic on its own now uh in terms of the ecosystem one of the ways we should we say gauge our growth is in the success stories the startups the products that we've been able to push is there any a few that you could share with us of significant can startup success stories from like the East African region all there's a whole list of so many of them and actually I think it is one thing that we are really lagging behind about we lack visibility I like the way you people in West Africa Nigeria and Ghana do things before I know it in some way or the other I know about money point in some way in some way or the other I know about web three Bridge you know so we lack that kind of uh um assertiveness or awakeness if I may say in East Africa to create that kind of global brand about something or even have some common platform where we enlist you know these startups everything that is happening in web 3 at least in the modern world always have there's a way they qu hype about it which is still lacking in East Africa so there are they are good companies they are good setups upcoming but they there's no unique portfolio where you can just go in this one location and then locate read about the others but uh just to give a few there is one called um okay PESA PESA is money so PESA pay is money pay if I may say so there is kotani pay there is a one ramp there is a is someone from Ghana here if you know hup hup is an East African product much as it is big in Ghana but it is an African product so just to mention a few those are some of them okay that's that I mean that's amazing so uh but we should work on a portfolio where we list Yes actually that I just say you know go check out this website and you'll just read about each and every one I mean yeah but but that's something we do over here and that's a space for collaboration which again is well working for my next question which is in terms of Africa now what are the opportunities that exist for collaboration or investment you know in East Africa I'm going to narrow it down to specifically like from Africa okay Africa opportunities Africa invest investment opportunities for like African startups in in East Africa all right so initiatives like we 3 Loos is already a step in that direction you see much as you 200 million people in Nigeria but for you to get the your first first million of customers of this population is what he has been telling you about like it's not that easy that first one million daily active users if if I may narrow it down actually so what does it mean the borders of Nigeria and uh you know Uganda or whichever country are in our minds otherwise if I stand in if I stood in eoro one morning and you know someone just blindfolded me and put me there and just by coincidence 10 people are speaking luganda around me I would think I'm in Uganda you agree he comes from Cano if I took him to Uganda and people around him spoke Houser what would you where would he think he is so the bord has exisit in our minds the issue of dealing with having to part with $270 to get a Nigerian Visa is a bad one because if why should I must why must I struggle to you know it's much easier for me to go to Dubai than to come to Nigeria so you see I'm N I know yes div GH from colia that kind of connection collaboration Ander then investment opportunties to be that always so why must I so that struck me like explain more like thank you so much it's been like an amazing conversation so please a round of applause for me I don't know you have question question I don't know how so I so anyway but I will tell you because I've read abouta so um that's a whole Vision or point of having a read write and own web what we call Web three you know so that when I when I when I put something or content out I don't totally relinquish control or value or purpose of that thing so that I remain a personal owner in all the rights available access at least permissible so FASA gives you that kind of now it's not it's it's it's it's it's it's you and me not an next thing alone you know so when we replicate that model actually I don't know I'm not an advocate for FASA but just to learn I would very much request everyone to try it out because it would be more relatable and ideal to have a sense of what we talking about if you if you use it like handy first experience so they have these security features Incorporated that you remain with uh the user is f involved and then engaged or interactive with them and then you don't just take it the way you see for Twitter like post and then go ultimately every reest every um engagement with your post yields you or ears you something ultimately you know such you yes you put out the the cast if I may say but there is something to show for it after at the end of the day you know so the security bit safeguarding what you what what it has generated in the long run what it has yielded if I may say all right any other question all right just one more question anyone okay I assume we don't have a question please a round of applause thank you thank you so much this was like amazing