In the 14th century, the richest man in the world then, Mansa Musa, king of the Mali empire in western Africa banked on education to unchain his people from poverty. He established the University of Timbuktu, a collection of three mosques renowned for their education quality and credibility at the time.

Under the university was one mosque called Sankore Masjid (or Sankore Madrassa), which was widely known to be the highest and the most prestigious educational, cultural and intellectual centre. In its golden age, Sankore produced the most innovative technologies in mathematics, science, literature and medicine. It was renowned for its scholars, vast library and as a driver of innovation in the world.

Having studied African philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and Oxford University in the UK, Kenyan-born Kevin Imani banked on Africa’s huge education heritage to concoct Sankore 2.0 (S2) in July 2021.

What is Sankore 2.0?

Sankore 2.0 is a blockchain community that has started to build disruptive technologies based on the NEAR Protocol. Sankore’s goal is to become a chain-agnostic hub for East African developers and other talent to collaborate, get resources for improving their craft, and transition from the Web2 to Web3 space.

It educates and nurtures talented individuals to be world-class blockchain developers. The startup essentially seeks to ensure excellence in blockchain innovations and application across the African continent.

Sankore 2.0, Imani told Nodo News, was born out of the need to help businesses remain innovative in the current ever-changing business environments by integrating blockchain technology in their operations.

“Sankore 2.0 is for people who want to be part of the next frontier in crypto, Web3 and open web solutions in Africa,” says Imani. “At Sankore 2.0, we aim to welcome eager learners and budding entrepreneurs and provide them with training; even to those who lack technical skills or professional experience in the tech sector.”

Sankore 2.0 has presence in Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, and Tunisia.

Empowering Young Africans in the Next 5 Decades

“Our mission is simple. We want to empower young Africans to be role models in tech over the next 50 years,” he tells Nodo News. “Today we use blockchain technology because it presents an opportunity to empower more people than we ever thought before. Through blockchain, we now have an opportunity to own the narrative of what this means for Africa.”

Imani’s first project is a partnership with the NEAR Kenya project, which started in May 2022. This is a NEAR-focused regional audience in Kenya that seeks to extend the NEAR protocol ecosystem in the country. Recently, it won a Web3 award in Dubai.

Through Sankore 2.0, NEAR Kenya has been driving the adoption of the NEAR ecosystem in Africa by increasing its regional audience.

“I know that in the next 50 years, Africa will have the largest workforce in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in the world. In anything STEM-related, by default, Africa will have the largest workforce globally,” he says. “Be it in integrated AI, blockchain data layers, cloud-based transparent supply chain managements, or government tech-focused infrastructure that may be centralized at the moment and in private blockchains.”

Africans, he says, will have an opportunity to build and maintain these tools from conception to implementation and maintenance globally.

“So, in the next 50 years, I’m banking on the fact that we will have the largest blockchain ecosystem workforce,” he says. “I believe in the narrative of blockchain.”

Grants for Blockchain Startups

Blockchain is the anchor technology that Sankore 2.0 seeks to focus on and the Web3 startup has, according to Imani, been doing a series of blockchain-themed training events in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Nakuru.

It does this through tech hackathons and accelerator programs in which many technology enthusiasts participate, learn and get funding to scale up their Web3 tech projects.

“We’ve invited participants to pitch for their tech-product development. The top three winning pitches are awarded grants of $50,000 each to develop their tech products,” Imani says. “We have a maximum of about five incubator programs in the continent.”

As there continues to be more adoption of blockchain, there will equally be more adoption of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) as African governments embrace them more than anywhere else in the world.

More companies supplying the CBDC infrastructures, Imani says, will therefore be working with African governments and more investments channelled in these nations.

“What I want to see in the development, implementation and maintenance of these CBDC infrastructures, is more premium-level, talented Africans, who are competent, qualified, and hired to do this work, instead of hiring from Silicon Valley or Western Europe,” Imani says.

A Developer Studio and Partnerships With Universities

To achieve this, Sankore 2.0 is partnering with universities and other higher learning institutions, identifying and picking students and training them to be capable enough to lead from end to end in Web3 projects.

“Today, we’ve scaled up to 40 developers based along Nairobi’s Lenana Road. This is the first year that we are going commercial,” he tells Nodo News. “It is a joint venture called Parallel 88 (P88), which is one of the largest developer studios in Web3 in East Africa. And soon P88 will be the largest Web3 developer studio in Africa,” Imani says.

Sankore 2.0 is also soon getting into a partnership with Oxford University to set up an exchange program initiative that seeks to provide data that will be useful in highlighting tech developments, through tech-focused media houses as well.

Through this, students and any other tech enthusiasts will have a platform to get info on tech startups, founders, incubator programs, accelerators, funding, and even tech regulatory frameworks.

“We are still in discussions and hopefully in the next quarter, we will roll out the fully-fledged partnership,” he tells Nodo News. “We will be able to expose our students to the Oxford Blockchain Society because Oxford needs to know how brilliant students from African universities are solving some of the biggest problems affecting the continent using blockchain technology.”

The key is to bring Ivy-league level of training and education in Web3. The target for Sankore 2.0 is to reach approximately 50,000 African trainees in the next three years, through its initiative.

“When I was invited to speak at Davos, I met the former vice president of strategic partnership of Amazon Web Services. She told me she wants to bring six million African women into Web3,” Imani says. “She wants to use her networks and schools as vehicles to onboard these women.”

The Aim is Job Creation

The women, according to Imani, will be trained through two sets of courses. The first course is on the history of money, which involves understanding the relationship between money, bitcoin and blockchain as well as the protocols involved. The other course is on coding.

“It is important to understand that every single training we intend to do, has an outcome in job creation.” says Imani. “Currently we have five trainers ready to implement this training module.”

Africa, Imani implies, by and large lacks quality education on the modern tech and access to recent and developing trends in technology, which is what is mostly required if Africa has to leverage Web3 and blockchain and make gains from them. Universities in the country, therefore, need to do more in this regard.

But Imani feels resentful about Africans being at the receiving end of tech and innovation and the way value these chains are constructed. “I challenge Africans to look at the bigger picture. Just like India and companies such as Infosys, we can produce CEOs for the global tech industry. Africa needs to lead in its technology and innovation. We need to change the power dynamics and see how we can own our narratives. The potential and possibilities that this continent has in technology are immense.“

Africa, Imani says, needs to lead in its technology and innovation, just as India is producing CEOs for the global tech industry.

-Edited by Shigeru Sato
-Photos by Faustine Ngila