Inclusive by Design, Compliance by Default. The Blueprint for Web3 Success - Deborah Enyone Oni

All right. Uh welcome uh to this session with me and thank you for the opportunity. All right. So I'll be taking us on the inclusive design. Sorry.

Okay. All right. So my name is Deborah Inoni. I'm a lawyer and I call myself the emerging tech lawyer. I'm also the startup uh startup lawyer.

I'm the founder of Hilton Top Solicitors. founder of Hilton Innovations Hub and founder of a platform that has built over 5,000 women from the legal space into the emerging technology into the blockchain space into the web 3 space. So I deem myself as a lawyer that is not traditional but in the intersection of law and the emerging technology which of course are web 3. All right. So uh enough about me now.

Let's go to what we have here today. inclusive by design, compliance by default, the blueprint for success. I want to appreciate every speaker that have spoken earlier and they've kind of laid the on the ground work for me and um yeah, if we are building to scale, if you are building and you have scale, growth, investment in mind, then you cannot afford to just build anyhow. It is very important that you pay attention to very core critical legal and regulatory issues especially within this jurisdiction. And now in my involvement within this space for uh some years now, I have seen that a large number of startups, a large number of players within the ecosystem actually are not familiar with the regulatory and the legal implications of being within the web 3 space.

And the thing is this lack of unawareness also causes you know uh a lot of trouble for them that it doesn't you know bring about sustainability. So if you are to build to scale to the global uh stage you need to really put in mind things around compliance things around inclusivity because it's not just a nice to have kind of thing. It is a survival strategy it is a sustainable strategy. Right. All right.

So uh very quickly we'll just talk about um inclusion, talk about compliance, the need for that and then we'll talk about the strategies that you can actually abide by while you are building within this space and then uh we'll just uh wrap up. So web free and so much hype around the web free and I've seen a couple of persons and um you know the only thing they understand about the web free is the fact that they came into it via some level of you know introduction into the crypto space and probably they got some airrop and they just moved in and they did not bother to even you know think about the technology that underpins those various solutions and so as a result as a nation we have kind of constricted ourselves to just one aspect ect scratching one particular aspect of the web three and let's not forget that we have various applications within the web three and that there is a need you don't have to have the understanding of how to go about the whole compliance just have an idea that it's a collaborative effort and you need to take into cognizance the fact that it is important and bring in the team all those that will help you build right so we're free it represents it's moved majorly and defined majorly By the decentralized nature of it, it's giving us control over our data. Right? It gives you control over your identity as against the other webs that we have had all up to this moment. Right?

Now, have you ever thought that this control that you are having, there are also legal com uh legal issues and regulatory issues around it and that there's a need for you to have that understanding or have part of your team understand that importance and I recall one of the speakers spoke earlier and then uh said something about a particular platform as a result of missing the aspect of just saying that uh this person is above the age of 18 Because there is a regulation that stipulates as to how you process data of minor. So if you do not comply with what the law has put in place, whatever you are writing content about, whatever you are building, whatever you are developing will only it's a matter of time before it crashes. And uh this is very uh on time now because I mean the regulators also are really sharpening their focus on the need to regulate the market. Now here's the uh the shocker. The thing is most of us or most of the people think that the regulators are against us but that's not the case.

We have come to realize that in most cases the regulators are even in dilemas as to juxtaposing the interest of the builders and those of the users. And so how do we do or put in place the laws that needs to be complied with for you as a content creator, for you as a marketer, for you as a developer, for you as a founder that we put in place things that can regulate you because the thing is that if we operate outside of the law, it's a matter of time. You can't go anywhere past your neighborhood, right? You can't. So that that global stage that you want to build for, they won't even have the trust in you to go there.

So if you are coming in and yours is not just all about the meme, the airdrops and the rest of it and you really want to build something tangible and sustainable then it is very important that you pay attention to this. All right. So inclusive by design because we don't have too much time. I'm not going to make it too interactive. So I'll just run through if no I would have asked you what is inclusion inclusivity what does it imply to you as you build within this ecosystem of the web three and then what does compliance really mean like the role that the rest of us play and for me in particular I have understood there are three main challenges that we have within the space we talk of issues around the infrastructure we talk of issues around regulation everywhere you go you will hear regulation uncertainty of regulations and the rest of bit and then we talk about issues around adoption as a result of unawareness and somehow to the glory of God I am performing roles in this other two part I'm not technical right although I was thinking of learning some smart contract programming at some point but that has been paused for a while all right so for the regulation I realized yes if we need the right regulations because the thing is that the web free is actually alien I would say permit me in quote to the existing laws that we have and so at the time that it came and that was one of the things that brought about that uncert uncertainty.

Now the laws have been cut from various aspect to tackle things that were based on centralized platform and now you came with a platform they were free which is based on the blockchain that is claiming to have its own norms decentralized which is the major thing and so the thing is yes there was going to be that loophole and so we realized I realized that there is now a need for me to understand this technology the blockchain and that's my main focus and that was my main focus and And I started and then delving into understanding it better. I was able to relate my legal knowledge and be like okay the legal implication. Then there's a need to build the workforce of those that understand it and have that diverse ecosystem so we can have that diverse perspective and bring about inclusivity. And why we bring about inclusivity? Now this is not a fight about oh they fighting for women oh they are fighting for the disabled but it's a fight to bring diverse perspective onto the table so we can harness the potentials that this web actually has and one of the things we can do that I realize is to build the workforce with my special focus on women of course build the workforce of those that are coming from my space in the legal space that are not traditional lawyers but understand the emerging technology understand the web three and are able to contribute effectively to be able to help the ecosystem understand and be in compliance so that at the end of the day we can harness that potentials and we will not come up with things that will stifle innovation right so now moving to inclusivity who are the excluded I've mentioned earlier women the under reppresented groups the marginalized group the disabled now in most cases we are building and thinking of the global stage but while we build for the global stage my bishop in my church will always say you want to go global but always start from where you are with what you have right so we can build with the problems that we have as a as a jurisdiction as Nigerians but how can you build if you don't have diverse perspective on the table if you don't have diverse um content creators if you are only having content creators who are only adapting content from outside jurisdiction that does not relate to our grandmothers who are in the villages where there is no internet who are in places where they have no idea about even Android phones.

So if you are putting out that that is part of what will inform the building. So that means that each and every one of us in the room has a role to play and so that every of this opinion, every of these underrepresented group can actually be represented and that way we can collaboratively come together to build solutions that will tackle our local content right or within our local context rather and then we scale from there to the global stage and that is how we bring about inclusion. So that means that if you are building you have to build knowing the user needs and you can't just sit here. Now we are just a few representation of those that are in the web free space. Right now the the reports a report has it that earlier this year around February Nigeria has about 107 million internet users out of the over 200 internet users.

What does that mean? What's happening to the over 100 million users on the internet? Don't you want to harness them for your solution as well? So that is one of the things that we can do. And so how do we build this inclusion?

I've spoken about collaboration. I spoke about creator community. You engage creators from diverse perspective and put out content that are localized and represent our true needs. And then of course community leaders. And as you engage everyone to be able to have their voices all included, you are now able to build because we'll talk about user friendliness, the user centric nature of the solution that can only come when you have done this.

You've collaborated, you've have diverse uh perspective coming into uh what the problem is from the various uh uh areas from the rural take an example my platform. It's a virtual platform this over 5,000 I'm talking about. It's not just those from Lagos. Now we have almost all the investors in Nigeria, I do have them that have passed through my platform especially from the legal uh industry uh from the legal department and most of them I mean you know that the universities are not just in cities the one in my state in Kogi state is in one of the villages in Kogi. So meaning that those from that area are part of those from my platform and some of them have been able in fact most of them have been able to come into the web free space intersecting and interfacing in this space and are relevant within the space effectively now and now so if I had just put it physical that would have already put a a a form of restriction to those who are just close to my area in Lagos here and then it will It will bring about some forms of limitations that those who have traditionally from my place and not that they just went to the University of Ki state to school.

Some of the people that I know that are by tribal persons that wouldn't have even had knowledge around what's blockchain or can a lawyer actually know about blockchain. They are now kind of you know they they are good in their own ways and building different kind of platforms even though it is not from the technical aspect. And I've had some of them even reach out to me reference to go and study further outside of the country to be able to build their expertise more within the web free space and that's joy for me and they write project and they even reference and that's that's part of the inclusivity. So if I need people from different states, I mean there are universities I didn't even have an idea that exists that they call me now Chupa University, they want me to come and talk on blockchain on this because they were part of that platform. And so that is what we can do when we bring people when we build to be able to accommodate people from diverse jurisdictions within this nation.

We can actually have the diverse uh perspective and then we do things like surveys, we do feedback forms. So we have feedback from everyone cutting across the various schools within this part of the world. Right? So by the time you are able to do that when you are building you are now able to address their pain points because you you you are able to build knowing the problems and then you are able to use that problem build and then you send forth feedback forms right through that platform as well. And that way you are able to iterate your solution to get it more polished to get to a better level that you kind of you know scale.

So these are some of the things we can do. So all right moving to uh compliance by default. Yeah. So I'll just run through what so what does compliance mean to us? Is it just hype for you?

Oh we are compliant. You are compliant with what is it with the registration of your company with the CAC corporate affairs commission which is the first requirement to like getting the license that you want if you are building any blockchain based solution. Now you say no I'm a content creator I don't need it but at the end of the day you want to build something right why do you just want to stop with just sitting down being just a Tik Tocker and be like oh you make your money and then tomorrow if anything happens you are off from there people cannot even trace that name which is probably like a fiticious name you have on Tik Tok they can't trace it to you again so that thing that you have built over time if they are to restrict you on Tik Tok now you don't have that business going again whereas you've been building something for free as a content creator or within that space. But had it had it ever occurred to you that oh I can actually put a structure to my business because the thing is that the laws like I said ranging from the laws especially the ISA 2025 the investment and securities act 2025 that was released this year it caters for almost every of these things that we're talking about. So if you are doing anything around oh I'm marketing a pro a product I'm marketing this kind of token and the rest of them that you will do the law is there to actually regulate you and ignorance of the law is not an excuse.

So if you do not know, it beholds on you to get to someone who knows and possibly a lawyer that knows within the space to be able to inform you. Oh, this is what these are the guidelines to you even creating content and representing any international platform to say, oh, they should go and get this airdrop, they should go and buy this, they should go and buy that. You can't just do it as if there was as as it were before. Yes, at some point we had the CBN restricting and all that, but I know that you all know that we have most moved past that and that we the ban has been lifted and that if you are transacting there are great levels of the blockchain and the cryptocurrency transactions that have been brought under the purview of the securities and exchange commission and classified as securities. Now if you are building something that serious, you want to know what does that mean for me?

What license do I need to get? And trust me for the SEC license is not 10 NRA is quite a huge but what who says you cannot collaborate with other uh people in the ecosystem and then put together so you can build a trust that you need to be able to scale that you need to be able to get the right funding for your solution because by complying with the local jurisdictional uh laws you are building more trust for people to transact on your platform. you're also building more trust for developers for investors as well to come and invest in your solution and it will have a ripple effect for the jurisdiction for Nigeria as well right so why don't you want to know things around that so there is a need for you to register appropriately and there's a need for you to get the necessary license for you as a content writer of course you're not getting license registering under the right structure and for you as a builder you need to know the right structure to register and move from that stage to be like get your license. Now you I have seen that most of the founders uh yeah I know I have 15 minutes this is just 12 minutes plus so I'm I'm watching the time thank you yeah so for you as a founder most of the time you're having international founders now the thing is that when you go out there they tell you to register within outside jurisdiction you come here and you behave like there's no law guiding us there are laws it's you that don't want to know yes before now the laws we were all confused but the I mean the regulators are trying now trying to put things together for your sake and for my sake Right? So when they come if there's an international or foreign involvement in your company, there are laws regulating it.

Even from the registration of the company, even from the licensing, even from the building, you decide to involve international developers, there are laws regulating it for you to legally transact and send money to them. So I mean, if you are able to put these things in place, there will be more of a a faster growth for everyone. And I'm sure that at the end of the day we'll be reaping the potentials in fullness right in most of the cases you cannot say oh we are trying to build and the regulators are just not receptive to this our solution you can make them understand. So what you owe yourself as a a founder in the space is to try and collaborate with the um with the regulators. Yes.

Take your solution there. Now as a a startup you don't even need to pay this heavy licensing fee. That's why the SEC came up with things like the incubation uh hub which is the AR accelerated incubation uh uh program. You can enroll as a startup and then they put you under this test environment and test your solution to see the viability and that way you they can move you to the next stage and we have seen that happen with things like Quidax. So I mean Quiddex has the last time I checked they had approval in principle right.

So this kind of a thing imagine if you go to the SEC platform you see Quiddex it reposits a a lot of confidence in you to transact in that space and that's not the only compliance there is the tax there is the tax aspect of uh complying and then there is the GDPA the NDPA then if you are doing outside of Nigeria is the European Union general data protection regulation. Now data is a protected asset. You must know as you proh you are creating content and getting people's information as you are building solution. I hope you know that every startup feed on data and data is a protected asset under the Nigerian data protection act 2023 and outside of the juris in fact it's a global issue. So you need to be compliant with the provisions of the data protection.

There is a way and there there are rules for collecting data for processing the data for storing the data and if you intend to now scale for even transferring our data outside of here where do you keep your data center do you have the right permission to do crossber transfer of data is a serious issue and has actually run a lot of startups down it has wiped them down so for startups if you are even in default of non-compliance with the data protection regulation you could run into fines of like 10 million or like two 2% of your annual gross uh income. So yeah, I have already spoken about the quidex as one of the case studies and so just to wrap up, thank you everyone. Uh the blueprint for the for success in the web free is inclusive design compliance framework estab let's establish uh standards ensuring regulations. Let's comply with the law and let's try to when you talk of securities you have issues around the right security measures to implement as developers right and then let's engage with the community and ensure that our community are aware of the laws for processing data let's set the rules and the guidelines for our community in compliance with the provisions of the law and of course there is a cyber security act as well for how you play on the digital space. So you want to be aware of this.

So please let's keep this in mind. There is KYC and the AML. These are all compliance issues. So as I have said the CBN, the SEC, the CAC, the FIRS and a large number of them are the regulators that you have to like you know check out to be in compliance for your solution. So whichever place or role that you play within the ecosystem, there is a law regulating you.

So try to connect and find out. Thank you very much.