The pan-African blockchain platform, Mara has unveiled a competition aimed at strengthening the financial sustainability of its ongoing conservation projects.
Dubbed 'Hack the Mara', the competition which involves eight finalists is expected to take place from September 17 to 26, 2022 in Ishara, Maasai Mara National Reserve.
Ishara is an immersive experience dedicated to preserving wildlife, the communities and the land of this globally significant conservation.
The top eight finalist teams from Kenya and Nigeria that will be participating in the physical hackathon include team Afrolabs (Nigeria), team BlockDash (Nigeria) and team FedhaPay (Kenya).
Others are team BlockHackers (Nigeria), team Blockverse (Nigeria), team Relic (Kenya), team Mastermind (Nigeria) and team Sahara (Kenya).
Team Afrolabs is made up of Obinna Oba, a full-stack developer with an interest in building in the Web3 space for startups in Africa, Anthony Nwobodo, a full-stack software engineer and blockchain developer and Chisom Aniefuna, a 400-level pharmacy student at the University of Nigeria.
Team BlockDash is made up of Obinna Onuoha, a full-stack software engineer with experience in building highly scalable user-facing applications, Hakeem Zakeem, a data scientist and Nofisat Ayanlola, a frontend developer skilled in data science and frontend coding.
Team FedhaPay is made up of Humphry Shikunzi, a software developer in blockchain development and UI/UX design, Maxwell Mwangi, a software engineer interested in Web3 and Jackline Tum, a product designer who loves using technology to solve problems and make an impact.
Team BlockHackers is made up of Solomon Ayo, a software developer with experience in blockchain amd backend development, Oluwayimika Oladipupo, a mechatronics engineering student and Chinwendu Iheanetu, an experienced project manager.
Team Blockverse is made up of Toochukwu Okoro, a smart contract developer, Joshua Avoaja, a software developer with technical implementation skills and Teresa Amanwachi, a researcher and technical writer.
Team Relic, an all ladies team, comprises of Martha Mwangi, a software developer, Rachel Chegec, a graphic and product designer and Velma Krop, a team player skilled project management, DAOs, blockchain and community management.
Team Mastermind comprises of Babatide Ayoade, a blockchain developer, Oluwasegun Abisagbo, a frontend developer and Patience Adajah, a frontend d-App engineer skilled in UI/UX design.
Team Sahara is made up of Dennis Mutua, a software engineer specializing in blockchain, Beatrice Kirii, a software developer skilled in code knowledge, research and testing as well as Maina Gichuri, a software engineer skilled in smart contracts development.
The teams submitted innovative and promising proposals that seek to advance long term beneficial, social and environmental change in Africa.
Each team’s proposal explained the innovative solutions they would be building prototypes for during the physical hack as they reflected on Mara’s commitment to serve as the port of entry for blockchain capacity building in Africa.
Despite the existing challenges around its adoption, Web3 technology is spreading all over Africa and more local communities are needed to build on it and celebrate it.
The Mara hackathon celebrates African Web3 developers and innovators who are working to solve last mile payment tracking challenges through creation of decentralized applications.
Mara will award the top teams with up to $100,000 (Sh 12.02 million) in funding, entry into startup accelerator programmes, mentorship and other resources so as to build out their solutions.
This is in partnership with Circle, the issuer of USD Coin (USDC) and Euro Coin, UN Foundations, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, Ishara Mara and Antler.
The hackathon will challenge developers to use blockchain via USSD and M-Pesa for payment transparency.
With crypto, Web3 and blockchain education as its focal point, Mara is set to train one million people and impact one billion lives in five years.