The Blockchain DevFest Kampala is an annual event that brings together industry experts, enthusiasts, and developers to meet, discuss, and network about blockchain-based solutions. Hackers, students, and developers build innovative solutions on the blockchain that they get to showcase, participate and gain valuable experience while competing for exciting prices.
The 2024 edition of Blockchain DevFest is the 3rd edition of the conference and had the largest number of registered attendees to date. It was a colorful event filled with a diverse group of industry experts, newbies, developers, enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs.
The goal of the event is to bring together the greatest and brightest minds in the continent together in one place to innovate and uncover blockchain-based solutions across various sectors in Africa.
I found the diversity and energy of the attendees refreshing and there was a vibrant builder energy evident all around.
This was my first experience at an event as an Unlock Ambassador and I was super excited about it. I relished the opportunity to represent Unlock at an event and this was the perfect way to kick that off. I was deeply involved in many activities at DevFest Kampala as a speaker and a panelist on the topic of blockchain scaling solutions. Unfortunately, due to delays in my visa approval process, I didn’t arrive early enough to organize a workshop for hackers to build on Unlock. I made up for that by starting an Unlock Protocol community in Uganda that can potentially onboard new developers, creators, businesses, and communities based in Uganda to the Unlock ecosystem in the medium to long term.
The event had 412 registered attendees, 21 speakers, and 12 hackathon projects submitted, 7 of those demoed.
Three projects emerged as winners of the hackathon.
BillBuddy is a MiniPay dApp that allows splitting expenses between friends and managing sacco groups, making group payments and savings easy and transparent.
Links: Github
PayLink is a dApp that lets users easily receive payments by generating payment links.
Decentracode is a platform built to incentivize builders, and hackers to build in the blockchain space.
Honorable Mentions
One of the unique builds that is worth mentioning despite coming in fourth place is CryptoQuiz.
CryptoQuiz lets players learn about a protocol or topic in the form of a gamified quiz with token incentives for the winner.
Links: Demo
The web3 ecosystem in Africa is buzzing with life and new communities and projects are emerging almost daily. With many free and paid events and conferences being organized, the continent is a prime target for adoption. Conferences such as ETHSafari, ETHAccra, and Web3Lagos are some of the biggest names, along with a host of others too numerous to mention attract some of the best talent and leaders in the space within and outside Africa. Unlock Protocol being the standard for Web3 events and onchain memberships and subscriptions is in pole position to capture these emerging communities.
Unlock Protocol is an open-source protocol, with smart contracts that are built specifically for memberships and subscriptions of all kinds. Their dynamic smart contract NFTs allow you to add time constraints, update pricing, and handle recurring payments, either in crypto or fiat.
Unlock Protocol's influence can extend beyond ticketing, to genuine integration into projects, in unique and innovative ways that provide novel solutions to local challenges in Africa.
DevFest Kampala 24’ served as a testament to the growing enthusiasm for blockchain and emerging technologies in East Africa and the wider African community. It was a fun experience and I enjoyed getting to participate more actively in shaping the development, and adoption of blockchain technology in the continent.
As blockchain technology continues to evolve, events like DevFest Kampala provide invaluable opportunities for collaboration and innovation. The web3 and emerging tech community can look forward to having access to more intimate, region-specific building events.