Blockchain Technologies are increasingly sweeping the world including places you will never expect to find it. One such African country where adoption is peaking is Zimbabwe.
Prince Fortune Sibanda is an IT expert who also runs the Zimbabwe Blockchain Institute (ZBI) in Zimbabwe’s second largest city of Bulawayo. Coinpedia reached out to him and discussed the future of Blockchain technology in his beautiful but economically ailing country.
Prince explained that his organisation seeks to illuminate the public and enterprises about the applicability of the underlying technology of the Blockchain. When asked if the Zimbabwe public including the government is receptive to Blockchain technologies, this was his answer:
“Not everybody is in the known but there are some people who are putting it to good use. As a matter of fact, robust, Precise emphasis on what it is than what it does not seem to clarify conceptualisation yet applicability needs demonstration. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, for instance, thinks it’s in the nascent stage and needs to be studied well before adopting it. For us, at ZBI the emphasis is on education and demonstration through the introduction of Blockchain projects that solve everyday predicaments.”
Blockchain As A Solution
On everyday problems that the Blockchain can be a solution to Prince admitted that issues of Land ownership and securing funding for agriculture. “Collateral for loans is a headache but a Blockchain approach to land tenure and ownership will enhance subsistence farming and make the prospect of commercial farming viable.”
For some years now Zimbabwe is cash-strapped and their foreign reserve is dried. The situation makes life unbearable with cross-border trade and payment becoming near impossible.
The President of ZBI sees Cryptocurrency as the answer to this quagmire but there are existing challenges that make adoption unfeasible. He says:
“It would be great to have an exchange that is programmed on existing online stores that are Zimbabwean. But the level of inception should be at that which answer the question as to why does crypto exist at the primary level.”
He explained that so far some of the applicable demonstration ZBI is undertaking includes the enlisting the academic certificates and also proof of ownership of utilities such as motor vehicles on the Blockchain. It is his conviction that digitalisation of these would be a giant step towards eliminating fraud in these areas.
It is also his view that in a decade Zimbabwe will be awash with Blockchain Technologies. “I think it would have taken root in Zimbabwe. Seeing that the economic situation is not changing it is bound that there would be more than enough reason to have technologies that reassure the absence of corruption to attract both local and foreign investment and Blockchain tech is more than capable”
