TBD has launched a Hackathon in collaboration with the Africa Bitcoin Conference. The hackathon is a competition designed to drive innovation, creativity, and technological advancement of payments in Africa using the tbDEX open-source protocol.
The competition will bring together the best builders and entrepreneurs to address issues in payment systems across Africa. Currently, many African countries face challenges such as limited access to banking services, high transaction fees, and inefficient cross-border payments. TBD’s open-source trust protocol, tbDEX, aims to address these problems by connecting users to wallet providers and financial institutions of their choice, surfacing competitive exchange rates and fees.
For the competition, applicants across Africa will be tasked with developing a payment application that leverages the power of tbDEX. They will then need to develop a wallet application integrated with tbDEX. Additionally, they will be provided with a sandbox of example PFIs (Participating Financial Institutions) to test their application’s functionality. Participants will then work in teams of up to two people and are expected to build their projects using the tbDEX SDK.
Six teams of finalists will then be chosen and flown to Nairobi to attend the Africa Bitcoin Conference and pitch what they have built to our panel of judges. The team in first place will bag Ksh. 1.98 million (USD 15,000) in BTC, with second and third place getting Ksh. 1.2 million (USD 10,000) in BTC and Ksh. 645,000 (USD 5,000) in BTC respectively.
Angie Jones, Global VP of Developer Relations for TBD said, “We encourage developers, entrepreneurs, and innovators from all over Africa to participate. Whether you are a seasoned professional or a passionate newcomer, the TBD Hackathon is the perfect platform to build the next generation of financial tools for the continent.”
Submissions for the hackathon are currently open and will close on 15th September. The competition will culminate for the finals to be held between 9th to 11th December in Nairobi, at the Africa Bitcoin Conference.