By Cynthia Ezekwe

UNICCON Group of Companies, Africa's leading hub for  science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research, training, and solutions has  launched SmartAfri Labs, a blockchain technology to drive the inclusion of Africans and adoption of the specialised technology in the region.

Chuks Ekwueme, chairman of UNICCON Group, while speaking at the launch of  SmartAfri Labs, shared insightful statistics to illustrate the poor inclusion and adoption of the blockchain ecosystem in Africa.

He noted that Africa currently has less than a five per cent stake in the projected $1.1 trillion the blockchain industry promises by 2025, but experts have raised optimism that the continent’s inclusion will rise 25 per cent in the next two years, buoyed by the rising innovations and technology platforms created to drive inclusion even among the poor populace.

Ekweme explained that it is erroneous to view blockchain technology as being crypto, stating that the newly launched platform, which is the first African blockchain technology, is a fusion of Web 2.0 and 3.0 and consists of SmartAfri Chain, the blockchain node, a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Marketplace, for creating  and selling  NFTs,  SmartAfri Verse, a Metaverse platform, SmartAfri eMarket, and UNICCON VR, which includes locally made and subsidised headsets.

He further added that the project seeks to increase stakes for Africans, encourage more developers to get into the niche, and overall, to drive massive inclusion.

Also speaking,  Kehinde Ake, general manager, UNICCON, stated that SmartAfri Labs offers exceptional levels of security, transparency, and efficiency, granting users the ability to transfer assets, save data, and carry out smart contracts in a decentralized and fraud-proof network.

According to him, the platform was created to allow Africans to take giant strides in an ecosystem that was once alien to them.

On his part, John Paul Nwobodo, an industry investment analyst with Adaverse, a Cardano ecosystem accelerator, that drives the development of blockchain technology on the continent, spoke about the  impact of blockchain technology in a wide variety of industries, making reference to the 2021 World Bank report, which disclosed that   66 per cent of Nigerians are unbanked, and the banked are being recycled by existing financial services providers.  He explained that the cost of cross-border remittance is very high and adopting blockchain technology  can make cross-border remittances cheaper and defy geographical barriers.