Qala is an organization that trains African Bitcoin engineers to drive Bitcoin’s growth in Africa and the Global South while also nurturing a generation of engineers who are committed to the open-source ethos of Bitcoin development.
₿trust, a non-profit organization focused on decentralizing Bitcoin software development, has announced that it has acquired Qala. Qala is an organization that trains African Bitcoin engineers.
As part of the agreement, which was finalised on September 1st, 2023, Qala will be rebranded as the ‘₿trust Builders Programme, with the goal of bolstering Trust’s commitment to its purpose of fostering the growth and education of Bitcoin open-source engineers from countries located in the Global South.
Bernard Parah, co-founder and director of Qala, was asked about the transaction, and he said the following:
“When we launched our program in 2021, our goal was clear – to build a critical mass of African engineers with a deep understanding of Bitcoin’s capabilities to transform the continent. Today’s announcement significantly accelerates this mission, strengthening our capacity to not only expand our existing community but effectively resource them to play a major role in influencing Bitcoin’s open-source development as a vital solution to Africa’s unique socio-economic challenges.”
“With this in mind, we strongly believe our new transition should not only be viewed as a massive boost for the Bitcoin ecosystem but a crucial foundation in leveraging Bitcoin as the gateway and catalyst to financial freedom in Africa and the Global South.”
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The impact Qala has made
Since its founding in 2021, Qala has been sourcing, training, and matching premier African software developers with leading Bitcoin organisations from all over the world. As a result, Qala’s engineers are equipped with the abilities that are most in demand on the global Bitcoin talent market.
To this day, Qala has succeeded in constructing the continent’s largest online community of Bitcoin developers. This network spans over 42 nations and includes Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. Alumni of the programmes have been offered positions at companies like as Galoy, SphinxChat, and Bitnob, in addition to receiving open-source funding from ₿trust and Superlunar. The fellowship placement rate for the programmes is rather outstanding.
In accordance with the terms of the agreement, Femi Longe, the current CEO of Qala, and Stephanie Titcombe, the current Programmes Manager at Qala, will formally join ₿trust in the capacity of Programme Leads at ₿trust Builders. The “₿trust Builders” programme will shift its attention to open-source training in order to jumpstart the next part of its growth path. Additionally, the programme has issued a call for its next cohort of senior African software engineers who are interested in transitioning into designing for Bitcoin and Lightning.
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Impact of the acquisition on ₿trust
Ojoma Ochai, a Board Member at ₿trust said “We’re incredibly proud to welcome Femi and his excellent team to ₿trust. With Qala’s extensive outreach and world-class programs, the organisation has made rapid progress in driving open-source development in the Global South through the advancement of education within the region, which is heavily aligned with our core mission at ₿trust.”
“As we move forward, we’re fully focussed on not only building on Qala’s impressive work in Africa but empowering more developers throughout the Global South with the support they need to build truly innovative open source solutions through the power of Bitcoin.”
The ‘design for Africa’ Hackathon will be held for the first time in September 2023, and it will be hosted by trust Builders. The goal of this event is to encourage makers to design solutions that solve African concerns and raise Bitcoin acceptance in Africa.
This will function as a platform for open innovation and collaborative problem-solving, where makers will come together to generate novel ideas through an idea hack focused on tackling challenges that are specific to Africa, and accelerate their Bitcoin projects through mentorship in design, development, and lighting integration.
The hackathon is an important pre-event for the Africa Bitcoin Conference, which will take place from December 1–3 in Accra, Ghana. trust is pleased to be a sponsor of the conference for the second year in a row.