The Beginning of the Impact Block Lab

Picture yourself back in high school. You sit at your desk with your books and pen in front of you. Your teacher stands by the blackboard as she scribbles some math-looking text on the board. You stare at the blackboard and teacher as she waves her hands, writes, and speaks to the class. At this moment, you may not even be paying attention as your thoughts have carried you to a faraway land. You might be thinking about home, your friends, that cake that you wish you finished but you said you were too full. Basically, you are thinking about everything else but the lesson that lies in front of you.

When being taught, we often think that we are learning as we are absorbing the information that comes to us. We are shown the steps, we try them out and it works out fine. We then go on to do a test and we end up passing. We claim that we understand the concept as the passing grade is proof of this. However, from experience, we can know something like a formula but explaining it to someone else is a different ball game.

Like the student in high school, I thought I knew about the blockchain because I read a lot of articles and watched a couple of videos. In my view, I was an expert and master enthusiast. I had even put it on my LinkedIn profile that I was a “blockchain developer”. My confidence was through the roof. This was until I was told to teach it to the members of the organization at Impact Africa Network.

It started well until I was asked tough questions, “What’s a hash?” “Where does the value of bitcoin come from?” “Explain blockchain and don’t include bitcoin”. It became clear that I was at peak of Mount Stupid, where I thought I knew blockchain until it soon came crashing down. This phenomenon is called the Dunning-Kruger effect. From thinking you know everything, you have to question the basic assumptions of what you know. You take the humble pie and google what a hash is. You listen to what the experts are saying on podcasts, videos, and articles. I just had to learn from scratch and it took time.

On the 19th of May, I got the chance to explain the blockchain to 85 attendees. It was supposed to be an internal talk, nothing serious. This was until the event was opened up to the public. I was quite nervous about the ordeal. It was 0 to 100 real quick and I was out of my comfort zone. It made worse when a good friend told me not to embarrass myself. This was 2 hours before the presentation. No pressure, right?

It is safe to say that I didn’t embarrass myself and the audience was very pleased with the session. It was a relief to see the attendees interacting on the chat and asking questions for me to answer. I expected a quiet group but I got something more, an inquisitive and eager group of blockchain enthusiasts like myself.

The session was as follows:

2. A practical session using Metamask and the Rinkeby Test Network (Tutorial coming soon)

I did the preparation and it’s safe to say that I understand the blockchain better than I did before. My definition of blockchain is as follows:

The blockchain is a list of transactions that registers how valuable goods have been transferred from one account to another, in a manner that doesn’t require a third party to facilitate the transaction.

In our world today, any value transfer we conduct is managed by a third party. This can be using cash, credit cards, and mobile money. These are managed by central banks, Visa/Mastercard, and Mpesa/Airtel Money. This allows includes the transfer of title deeds for land, cars, and even copyright and intellectual property.

The reason we use third parties is that they are good at building and keeping trust. When you use Mpesa, we are certain that they will deliver our money from one account to the next. We are confident that they will not make a mistake, lose our money or fail in the process of transfer. This is because they have invested heavily in their security and value their brand image.

However, many countries in the developing world lack quality services such as Mpesa. Good examples are:

At the root of all of this, we can say that the above institutions are hard to trust, until Mpesa which very trustworthy. The key here is trust.

Instead of placing the trust on third parties, institutions, and central authorities, the blockchain was created to build trust in the system itself. Using cryptography, we have a system that protects valuable data from being changed by unauthorized people. We add consensus into the system, which requires all participants in the network to check if the rules of the system are being followed. These participants can be senders, receivers, and special nodes known as validators, who do most of the checking on the system.

These participants communicate on a network over the internet and store transactions in a list format, known as blocks. These blocks are checked by the validators and processed one by one. Once a block is processed, it is checked by all participants to see if it is correct. If the block is correct, it is added to a chain of previous blocks to form a history of transactions of the system. This linking of blocks is known as the blockchain. To top it off, it has protection mechanisms that use cryptography and consensus to keep all participants on the right path.

That’s the blockchain!

At Impact Africa Network, I was tasked with educating the organization on blockchain and leading any developments in this area. Working on this project has really challenged my skills and how I apply them in my day-to-day activities. I have learned a lot working on this project and we are excited to finally have a name for it. I present to you, the Impact Block Lab

We are looking forward to hosting more sessions on blockchain technology and how it can help our continent to solve its persistent problems. This technology presents a chance for African countries to leapfrog the technological revolutions that defines the West and set us up for prosperity. We were left behind and we can see the evidence. With 350 million Africans without access to bank accounts, the blockchain presents the chance for these people to receive health insurance, remittance services, borrowing and lending services, and other services that have steered economic growth in developed nations.

Our mission is to create awareness about blockchain technology, build a community of blockchain enthusiasts and train African blockchain developers.

The vision to ignite a revolution of African entrepreneurs, innovators, and developers, who will use blockchain technology to solve Africa's persistent problems by building African solutions.

If this excited you, then stay tuned for what’s to come.

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