CELO Sponsors the ETHSafari Conference as a Key Web3 Ecosystem Partner in Kenya

CELO, a mobile-first and a leading blockchain protocol in Africa, was one of the key partners for the just concluded ETHSafari event which saw over 300 attendees from over 30 countries come together to talk about the decentralized economy that is quickly taking over the world by storm.

Celo was part of ETHSafari as a Gold sponsor and is a key supporter of the Web3 ecosystem in East Africa and the entire continent.

Kicking off with networking on the Nairobi-Kilifi train ride, the Celo team was actively involved in all the activities during the 7-day period of the conference, both in Nairobi and in Kilifi.

According to Daniel Kimotho, ecosystem lead for Celo in Kenya:

ETHSafari was a great opportunity to connect with ecosystem participants from builders, founders, backers and community members who are actively working on web3 based innovation.The series of events talks and train ride served as a great venue to form partnerships and strengthen existing ecosystem relationships. – Daniel

As expected, the Celo booth was one of the most active with many people eager to interact and learn more from the local team about its African initiatives.

Speaking about Celo’s involvement in the conference, Isha Varshney from the Celo Foundation said:

CELO Foundation’s mission of ‘ Prosperity for All’ manifests in its focus on building across Africa. It was important for us at the foundation to support this community led action and thus not only were we Gold sponsors for the event and we had team members participated actively across talks and panels and a showcase booth for addressing queries for builders attending. – Isha

As Angelo Kalaw, Celo Foundation said:

The industry in Africa is evolving fast. Just 6 months ago at the Africa Tech Summit, we met builders who were just starting but now are scaling their companies or have raised outstanding rounds from investors, including our own builders like Nuzo. The bear market is not stopping the momentum for building meaningful use cases in the region. – Angelo

Daniel Kimotho, Celo’s Ecosystem Lead for Kenya, gave an on-stage talk titled ‘CELO in Africa’ and detailed what Celo’s presence means for the ecosystem. He touched on some key places where Celo is engaging. He highlighted the CELO Africa Web3 Fund whose mission is to attract and nurture the most talented value aligned directly and through a variety of programs to build successfully on the Celo platform to further Celo’s mission.

The CELO Africa Web3 fund is an aggregation of allocations from Celo Ecosystem partners. Each of the partners gets access to companies building on Celo and is at liberty to invest based on their own thesis and criteria.

Regarding the potential for Web3 growth in Kenya, Isha Varshney, added that:

The potential for Web 3 adoption across the continent and primarily in Kenya is massive. Through the conference we were exposed to lots of regenerative real world use cases being explored. Builders showcased community currencies, lending, e-commerce marketplaces and projects building on climate action. There was lots of interest from investors both local and international signifying bullish sentiment towards Web3 adoption and scale in Kenya. – Isha

Speaking about the experiences at the booth, Umar Sebyala, Celo ecosystem lead, Uganda, concluded that:

It was a good experience with lots of engagement from the attendees and opportunities to see what other builders in the crypto space are doing.There is an organic interest in crypto and Blockchain within Kenya with the youth being at the front of the adoption. Kenya is a hotbed of crypto activity. – Umar

The team also participated on the main stage and panel presentations.

Isha Varshney of Celo Foundation, led a panel on ‘Creating a Regenerative Economy through DeFi in Africa.’ – On the panel were Pascal Ntsama IV of Canza Finance, Zach Marks of Jia, Ashley Taylor Buck of ReSource Finance, Charles Nichols of Nuzo, and Felix Macharia of Kotani Pay.

Angelo Kalaw of Celo Foundation also led a panel discussion on Social Impact titled ‘Mobilizing Climate and Social Action through Impact Tokens and certificates.’ – The panel comprised Kennedy Ng’ang’a of Shamba Network, Ani Vallabhaneni of Sanergy, and Betty Waitherero of Telos Foundation.