Africa’s leading blockchain conference to cut through hype, focus on real uses of blockchain tech

The African continent faces massive challenges with transactions and doing business. These can be improved using blockchain technology to provide simpler, more efficient and cost-effective ways of working; reducing fraud; increase security and transparency; and remove human error and inefficiencies.

The Blockchain Africa Conference 2019 is Africa’s leading blockchain conference and will focus on moving Africa forward and enabling the continent to adopt blockchain technology to improve lives and transform industries. The event will explore a range of topics, including embracing blockchain technology, its benefits and opportunities, insight into current blockchain use cases, the regulatory environment, and concerns regarding the performance, adoption and scalability of blockchain infrastructure.

In its fifth edition, the conference will have speakers and delegates from more than 35 countries, attracting investors, startups, enthusiasts, developers, corporates, policymakers, venture funds and regulators. It brings together top thought leaders and pioneers in the industry and creates an ecosystem for all to learn from each other and collaborate.

The speakers

The conference speakers include some of the most well-known names globally, some of whom started their careers in this space when bitcoin and blockchain technology was first created.

The master of ceremonies in Johannesburg is Farzam Ehsani, CEO and co-founder of VALR.com. Didi Sehume, project lead and strategist at Hume Est, is the master of ceremonies in Cape Town.

The keynote speaker in Johannesburg is Brian Behlendorf, the executive director of the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project, who has been named one of the top 10 influential voices in the blockchain world, in a New York Times commentary titled “The people leading the blockchain revolution”.

Hyperledger now oversees several blockchain projects, but its biggest product is Hyperledger Fabric, which is being used by everyone from Walmart to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US.

Other speakers include:

• Caroline Dama, director, and co-founder of Grassroots Economics, a non-profit organisation addressing financial inclusivity in Africa by focusing on community development through community currency programmes. The community currencies serve as a regional means of exchange that supplements the national currency system. The people in Kenya can now exchange goods and services and incubate new businesses without relying on scarce national currency and volatile markets.

• Monica Singer, creator of opportunities at ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company that develops decentralised software services and applications that operate on the Ethereum blockchain. Singer was named SA's most influential women in business in the category of business service, run by CEO Magazine.
  
  
• Faith Obafemi, founding partner at Lex Futurus, a digital legal firm providing blockchain and decentralised ledger legal advisory services. Obafemi is a digital lawyer who is passionate about blockchain technology. Her work on blockchain, cryptocurrencies and smart contracts have been published in popular publications such as CryptoCoin.News, CryptoGlobe, CryptoCoreMedia, and TheCoinOffering, among others.
  
  
• Dr Shaun Conway, founder of Consent and founder and president of the Ixo Foundation, a nonprofit software development foundation, building the ixo blockchain for sustainable development impacts. Conway is a clinically experienced physician and innovator who has founded global health and human development ventures that have affected the lives of millions of people.

• Marcus Swanepoel, co-founder and CEO of Luno, SA’s first and largest cryptocurrency exchange. Swanepoel previously worked in private equity and consumer and investment banking across Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, for companies such as Standard Chartered, Morgan Stanley and 3i. He holds an MBA from Insead and is a qualified chartered accountant and CFA charter holder.

• Dr Ntuthuko Bhengu, chairman of the board of directors of the Road Accident Fund and non-executive advisory committee member of Nestlé (SA). In 2015, Bhengu was appointed by the presidency to serve as the health sector expert and commissioner of the National Planning Commission in 2015–20. During his career spanning 22 years, he worked in senior management roles within the healthcare industry, which gave him an in-depth understanding of healthcare policy and management of corporations in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, hospital and health insurance sectors.

Move beyond the hype

The Blockchain Africa Conference 2019 will focus on cutting through the hype and showcasing real use-cases, including industry leaders who have products and services available for consumers to use and for governments and policymakers to adopt.

Although it is still too early to predict the impact of blockchain technology, its current uses are an indication it can solve a number of challenges.

Previous events

Judging from previous conferences, you can expect a buzzing exhibition space, riveting discussions and debates. The event provides a platform for like-minded individuals to partner with and invest in each other.

You can buy a start-up ticket, a standard ticket or an executive ticket. Sponsorship opportunities are still available, should your business wish to increase its exposure. If you are interested in attending the conference, you can buy a ticket for either Johannesburg or Cape Town, or for both cities.

The dates are February 28 to March 1 2019 in Johannesburg and March 6 2019 in Cape Town.

To buy tickets, click here.

If your business is in Africa and your target is growth, the Blockchain Africa Conference 2019 is a must-attend.

Meet the founders

Sonya Kuhnel and Theo Sauls are early adopters of bitcoin and are so passionate about the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology that Bitcoin Events was born to educate and inform people about the opportunities offered by digital currencies. In 2015, Bitcoin Events started the Blockchain Africa Conferences to address this need.

Bitcoin Events is the first events company to host world-class bitcoin and blockchain conferences in Africa.

For more information about the conference, visit www.blockchainafrica.co or email info@blockchainafrica.co.

This article was paid for by Bitcoin Events.