By NABYL CHARANIA More by this Author

Expectedly, Bitcoin has taken up most of the space in conversations related to blockchain – defined as “… an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.”

Above and beyond Bitcoin, however, blockchain technologies can help empower civil society to push for increased quality of life for populations.

Through its key characteristics of decentralisation and transparency – the records are publicly available on the internet and easily verifiable, and no centralised version of this information exists for a hacker to corrupt, as it is hosted by millions of computers simultaneously – blockchain provides enhanced capacity to deal with systemic societal issues.

At a macro level, more of the continent’s population is coming online, increasing by 20 per cent every year.

Additionally, advances in tech education in various countries on the continent (including PhD programmes at Makerere University) are raising the bar. Numerous blockchain conferences, communities and companies have also been established throughout the continent.

Key public institutions such as education and health are where blockchain technologies can be of great help.


Education

In the past few years, blockchain technology has been leveraged in numerous aspects of education – from early childhood development right up to the post-secondary level.

Not only is blockchain helping to provide more transparent and accountable funding, it also has the potential to halt academic fraud and better verify student credentials.

Consider what startup Amply is doing. The company helps early childhood development institutions in South Africa record and verify attendance lists. These are then tokenised, enabling the centres to be awarded the correct amount of subsidy money from the government.

In Tunisia, the startup Devery.io, has partnered with the Ministry of Education to implement blockchain-based tracking for school meals. This helps to track the quality of the programme, designed to provide a fresh meal daily to underprivileged students.

Nutrition and education go hand-in-hand, after all. Blockchain is being used in higher education, too. Notably, the technology is being leveraged to prevent academic fraud in Kenya.

The government of Kenya and IBM teamed up back in 2016 to enable schools to grant academic certificates on the blockchain. Now, blockchain technology is helping to create a framework in the region through which academic institutions and employers can have greater confidence in the outcomes of student evaluations and credentials.

Health

Blockchain also has the potential to transform the global health field through secure ledgers, for example.

The following is by no means an exhaustive nor a prioritised list of fields where blockchains can be deployed. However, it does reflect major gaps that are threatening the health of large swathes of the population across the continent:

Stopping the spread of foodborne diseases. According to the WHO, 420,000 die each year as a result of foodborne diseases, with Africa and Southeast Asia being the hardest hit. This is caused by chemicals, bacteria, parasites, natural toxins, or simply, when something’s gone terribly wrong in the supply chain.

Blockchain ledgers are immutable and transparent, meaning that as soon as a problem in the food chain arises, parties can step in to stop production – and stop the illness from spreading further.

Take Bext360, for example. The traceability platform is being leveraged on Ugandan coffee farms – so when farmers present their beans for analysis, their identity, payment, and quality is recorded on the ledger. If any foodborne diseases arise, the beans can be traced back to their origin.

Access to healthcare. There are 400 million people worldwide who don’t have access to essential healthcare – and many of these people live in sub-Saharan Africa. The region has 25 per cent of the world’s disease burden, but only three per cent of its doctors.

The Austin, Texas-based company BitMED offers a viable solution. Through the BXM token, members of the service have the opportunity to video chat with a doctor, talk on forums with an online health community, and engage with personalised content; it’s all in exchange for sharing anonymous health data.

The company treats patients in the US and Africa – and according to an announcement in May, signed up more than 100,000 new members in the Burera and Gasabo districts of Rwanda in just two weeks after launching there.

Identity. Access to health services, especially in rural areas, is further hampered by the lack of “identity.” In sub-Saharan Africa, only 44 per cent of children are registered; in Somalia, it’s only 3 per cent.

When people haven’t been assigned an identity at birth, it makes it difficult for them to receive the government care they need. But now another use-case for blockchain, is assigning babies digital identities at birth. It’s something that is already happening in Tanzania, with so-called blockchain babies.

The follow-up impacts of establishing this identity via the blockchain include a data-driven focus on bettering maternal health.

Improving care. In 2013, about one in four health facilities, as well as one-third of hospitals, had no access to electricity in 11 sub-Saharan African countries. This can lead to vaccine spoilage, medical devices being interrupted, and not being able to communicate – or even see – during emergency procedures.

This past April, ImpactPPA, a blockchain platform partnered with Earth Day Network to install decentralised clean energy systems at 50 facilities by 2020 – including schools and healthcare centres.

The first stop is Edna Adan Hospital in Hargeisa, Somaliland, which provides maternity care for women. Here, a wind and solar system will be installed, and the money currently being spent on energy will instead be used for patient care.

Another blockchain-based renewable energy company, KWHCoin, has started working with Nurse In Hand Emergency Response, which provides emergency response services on Kenyan roads. KWHCoin will help the organisation establish “renewable energy resources for medical stations ... and develop a structure for installing energy efficient mobile units throughout Kenya's road network.”

In May, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said his government would soon experiment with blockchain technology to boost service delivery, mainly in financial inclusion, election process, cybersecurity and land titling.

Already, the Kenyan government is working on a blockchain database known as the Single Source of Truth (SSOT) that will become the primary reference for all land transactions, as it looks to weed out fake title deeds from the land registry, in its first potential mass application of the technology.

Localised blockchain innovation across various countries in Africa has inevitably caught the attention of larger blockchain innovators around the world.

Binance, the world’s second largest crypto exchange, has partnered with Crypto Savannah to enhance economic infrastructure for local communities in Uganda.

IBM has developed various partnerships on the continent, such as one with food logistics startup Twiga in Kenya. These foreign partnerships show that the world is paying attention to the continent’s blockchain innovation potential.

Nabyl Charania is the chairman and chief executive officer of Rokk3r