Over the last weekend, we hosted (Block Bunch) the first of its kind DevFest in Uganda! The anticipated event went down at MoTIV from 9 AM all way to 5 PM!
The event attracted around 210 physical attendees with over 10 different speakers.
The event was a hybrid one as we also had some netizens joining us, especially outside Uganda.
Regardless of the Bank Of Uganda clamping down on crypto trading and warning all registered Financial Service providers involved to have their licences revoked, the Ugandan Blockchain community has continued to become more robust and more ambitious about their love for blockchain.
๐Event Sponsors
The event was organised by Block Bunch (a team apart of) and attracted a bunch of sponsors who came alongside us and these included;
๐ Block Bunch
Block Bunch is an organization of Web 3.0, Blockchains and High-End Tech zealots charged with driving Blockchains Developer education, and community awareness among many more objectives coming along the way. Yes, we did some self-sponsorship๐ค!
๐ Celo
Celo is a global payments infrastructure that makes financial tools accessible to anyone with a mobile phone.
๐ Binusu
Binusu is a decentralized peer-to-peer exchange network and stable exchange medium, designed to be used by customers and merchants.
๐Yellow Card
Yellow Card is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers the safest way to buy and sell bitcoin and also send, receive and store your crypto.
๐Muda
MUDA NFT is a comprehensive project that seeks to bring together art collectors, artists, investors and the rest of the art community closer to the new era of Digital Art through NFTs.
MUDA stands for MUseum of Digital Art.
MUDA, an African-focused NFT marketplace has a collection of NFT pieces called Afro Kingz, you could check them out.
๐Crypto Bootcamp Community
CBC is an empowering and networking community to the world through Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency Education.
๐Nile One
They are about Transforming youth into competitive Entrepreneurs through Blockchain Education & Innovation, Incubation, Mentorship, Crypto Metrics & Financial Empowerment.
Their academy offers various courses on Cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology both online and offline
๐Worldcoin
Worldcoin is a digital currency that launches by giving away a piece to every person in the world.
๐MoTIV | TIV
MoTIV is a tribe of talented makers that am also gladly part of. They provide a space in which makers have access to high-quality innovative machinery and training.
It originated from the Makers of The Innovation Village (MoTIV). TIV is A destination where every idea counts as a driver for social-economic transformation.
๐ Speaker Sessions
Some of the snippets from speaker sessions we had included;
๐Ronald Kawesi (Blockchain & Real Estate)
Talked majorly about the use case of Blockchain in Real Estate and how you can leverage this nascent technology to an already existing venture.
๐ Able Namureeba (Yellow Card)
Yellow Card's Country Director briefly shared about Yellow Card, and how they have come up stronger in regards to the Bank Of Uganda directive.
๐ Racheal Athieno (MoTIV)
Highlighted the importance of communities like MoTIV and how they are supporting the young talent in their respective tech spaces. Racheal is an events associate at MoTIV.
๐ Brian Tweheyo (Binusu)
Brian who is a project lead at Binuse discussed more the role of such exchanges. Binusu is an active product of Crypto Savanah.
๐ Deborah Aanyu (Technical Writer)
Deborah is a Technical writer and elaborated on the importance of technical writing to aspiring developers and blockchain communities. Narrated how technical writing is so critical in one's learning journey.
๐ Davin Oyesigye (Muda)
Davin from Muda elaborated more about the Muda Exchange which has a friendly NFT engine, DeFI support for the different developers who would be interested and be a part of the ecosystem.
๐ David Lumala (Block Bunch)
Demonstrated live with how to get started with Solidity for a beginner especially if you are into smart-contracts programming.
๐ Umar Sebyala (Celo)
Umar shared about the recent development in Celo and how developers could leverage and be involved in the mobile space.
๐ Louis Namwanja (Lawyer & Corp Fin)
Discussed more the legal perspective on cryptocurrencies as a whole and why some governments have clamped down on crypto.
๐ Discussion Panel
We also had a panel for a collaborative session with all the Speakers and Elias Hezron from Block Bunch was the moderator. Many questions regarding crypto & blockchain In Uganda arose which were tackled differently.
๐ The Media
As they say, graphical illustrations convey a stronger message than words, I will let them take over from here.
๐What Next?
We are currently taking notes and recording feedback from all attendees.
We plan to use this feedback as Block Bunch to make a better and more informed DevFest. We are considering all responses coming in to make sure that we try to answer a number of expectations, especially to the growing community of Blockchain Enthusiasts (Both Devs & Non-Technical).
This is also a call for sponsors, everyone who can be part of our next event, which could be probably a blockchain hackathon or another DevFest regarding the collected feedback.
If you participated in this event and you have not yet recorded your feedback, visit this form.
๐ Conclusion
Thank you for reading till now and if you came through for the DevFest, see you again!
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