The Africa Blockchain Center has announced the graduation of 105 blockchain developers under its Blockchain Programming training course.
The graduation occurred today after the students had engaged in a 6-month training, with the 105 graduates pooled from Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa and the Benin Republic.
The CEO of Africa Blockchain Center, Jefferson Mkungusi, emphasised that Africa has great unexploited potential in the area of web3 development.
According to the CEO, “The youth that we have trained will be able to build innovative solutions that will enable Africa to leapfrog to a new era. The potential that blockchain has in solving some of the challenges that are facing Africa is massive, and we have not even scratched the surface.”
He also revealed the centre’s plan to empower thousands of more Africans in the next few years.
“We aim to train 10,000 blockchain programmers, power 25,000 business leaders and executives on blockchain readiness, incubate 50 blockchain startups and launch robust solutions for the market in the next five years,” Mkungusi said.
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The Blockchain Programming Course Highlights
The course, facilitated by a global expert network, is a hands-on training programme that teaches the learners the core fundamentals of blockchain technology. It also exposes the students to decentralised systems and takes them through the various blockchain programming protocols with specifications on Cardano, Algorand and Ethereum.
Key learning points from the training that the learners were exposed to covered Decentralisation in Information Systems, Principles of Decentralization, History and operating Principles of Bitcoin, as well as Blockchain Technology Fundamental structures. The students also learned about Decentralization as an approach in Information Systems, Introduction to Asset Tokenization, Cryptography in decentralised systems, Application of decentralised approaches to system designs, Alternative digital currencies and tokenization, Introduction to Smart Contracts, Features and roles of cryptographic commitments in accounting systems and Development of existing blockchain-based systems (Cardano, Ethereum, Algorand, IoTEX).
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Blockchain Industry Challenges
He explained that the global blockchain sector is struggling to find qualified personnel as demand for blockchain solutions rises. In the global blockchain industry, there is a mismatch between the supply and demand for talent, according to a recent study by LinkedIn Corp. and OKX utilizing data collected from 180 countries between January 2019 and June 2022. Qualified applicants are in short supply.
According to the report’s data, the number of LinkedIn users working in the blockchain industry increased by 76% from January to June of this year, but talent growth is declining in the nations that create the majority of blockchain professionals.
Speaking further, Mkungusi explained that “there is not enough talent because of how novel the technology is.” The technology was conceptualized hardly 13 years ago, and it has been the subject of speculation for years with no established pipeline for blockchain talent in place. “We see the sector’s rapid expansion and aim to become a sector partner when it comes to blockchain capacity.”
Recruiters and hiring managers may not know what to look for (or the red flags) due to their own lack of experience and knowledge, so many people enter the blockchain to pass the time while developing their skills informally online.
“There has been a 17% increase in the last few years on projects utilizing blockchain.” From acquiring infrastructure for transparency in information sharing to digital asset deployment and many other use cases, blockchain is earning its seat at the revolutionary-tech table. “The newly trained ABC cohort will therefore add value to the blockchain ecosystem as they are open to new opportunities to support organizations in need of blockchain expertise in Africa and globally.” Concluded Mkungusi.
The Africa Blockchain Center welcomes blockchain stakeholders who want to join their ecosystem and gain in-depth knowledge of the functional and technical aspects of blockchain technology, as well as access the capacity needed to implement blockchain solutions in their businesses and industries.