Why are you participating for Based Africa?

We are focused on building a vibrant east african base community and onboarding them onchain. By educating developers and users here about Base's seamless user experience, low gas fees and interoperability, we have a chance to onboard a whole new group of people into the base ecosystem from the start.

Secondly, Base's focus on inclusiveness and accessibility perfectly matches what is needed in east Africa. Through community events and educational resources, more individuals will learn about the opportunities in decentralized finance, NFTs, creators chapter and gaming that Base enables.
Base focus on creators is a huge motivating factor as East Africa is briming with all types of talents apart from developers and this is a major reason why we aim to let the whole community interact with base ecosystem whether they have developer skills or other non-technical skills. It is with great honor to let the East African community learn about these opportunities through the medium we are creating.
As a passionate native about the region's potential, I want to harness local talent. Assisting create a Base community provides training and skills development so East African developers can build on the ever-expanding Base ecosystem. Collaborations between local startups, institutions, developers, artists, creators and Base will further cement its position as platform of choice.
In summary, by nurturing an East African Base community from the ground up, I believe we have a unique chance to bring the benefits of its technology to an important Audience and in turn, contribute meaningfully to advancement of the continent as well as growth of onchain activities in the base ecosystem. I'm excited to foster this!

What challenges are you focusing on?

Crypto and web3 are still unfamiliar concepts for many. We aim to demystify it through local workshops for robust explanations and examples relevant to daily life. Partnerships with universities, hubs and existing communities will help cross-pollinate to create awareness of the base blockchain

One of our main aims is to create non scaling solutions like create content that relate to local communities to onboard them onchain through local swahili language, helping local artists also mint on chain their creations and more of such activities.

Onboarding: Creating and securing wallets can pose barriers, especially on mobile. By integrating and training builders and communities on the use of smart wallets and gas sponsorship models championed by base , the Base East Africa setup aims to onboard the next billion users part of it from this region.

Skills: While interest is growing, advanced blockchain, base east africa plans to host workshops, mentorship and possibly incentives like hackathons to continue sharing the skills to the people to create skilled devs, creative artists in the base ecosystem .

Adoption of a new L2 by sharing the capabilities of base blockchain through webinars, IRL activities and bootcamps

Addressing concerns like these in an inclusive manner is key to sustainable growth of the East African Base community as well as expanding the base community and use of the network. Overcoming these hurdles together will strengthen both the ecosystem and the region as we onoard the next billion users on chain .

How does your submission address this challenge?

East Africa Base community project and its potential impact:
An education program covering intro web3 courses, workshops on Base SDK and regular meetups/ workshops /clinics
A mentorship program pairing experienced devs with newcomers to foster skills development
Collaboration platforms to nurture project partnerships between local startups/Universities and Base
Community events, challenges and initiatives like regular webinars, x spaces, discord and telegram calls to upskill community, onboard new users and teach as many young generations in institutions thus creating an unstoppable force onchain

Potential Impacts
Onboard thousands of new users and developers to base ecosystem through accessible education
Position Base as the preferred L2 infrastructure in EA by supporting local startup growth & partnerships
Develop cohort of highly skilled blockchain dev talent through training programs & workshops
Provide East Africans gateway to global opportunities in defi, NFTs and onchain activities
Help startups and students monetize skills and find work through sharing of opportunities like global hackathons, base -builds features and micro and mini grants available in base ecosystem
Ultimately help accelerate EA's digital transformation leveraging blockchain technologies built on base
Continue leveraging Base’s tools to scale our impact, providing tailored content and educational resources that align with the specific needs and challenges faced by these regions.

Challenges I ran into

Coordination: Getting mentors, space for meetups required pulling in diverse stakeholders. We addressed this by collaborating with passionate individuals in the base ecosystem who agreed to offer spaces for IRL meetups , inviting knowledgeable individuals in the technical aspects to our weekly spaces and online workshops to assist in training.
Partnerships: Finding base aligned partners locally is been ongoing as the ecosystem matures. Events promoting collaboration are much welcome and we look forward to the base buildathon event as one to foster even more solid partnerships with other builders and individuals in the ecosystem.

Additional Features

We have thus far Produced localized educational content like videos, podcasts, graphic guides to assist the local communities expand their knowledge in the base ecosystem for both builders and creators
Offered training on additional useful tools to participate in base mini grants and microgrant programmes by sharing knowledge on apps like farcaster, zora , the paragraph, remix ide, smart wallets and onchain toolkit to get the community fully on chain
Leveraged AMA series and online/live events to strengthen base community ties
Created social media platforms on x and telegram to keep communities informed and updated