The Journey to Nairobi — Africa Tech Summit Recap
Hujambo!
That’s hello in Swahili. It’s one of the many things our team learnt last month at the just concluded Africa Tech Summit in Nairobi.
From February 23rd — 24th, the Sarit Expo Centre opened its doors to the fourth edition of the Africa Tech Summit. Over 500 tech leaders and some of the brightest men and women across the African tech ecosystem came under one roof, to share their collective vision for the future of tech in Africa. There were three Summits in all, The Money and DeFi Summit, supported by Celo and VerifyMe, the Africa Start-up Summit and the Africa Mobile Summit.
On arriving at the Sarit Expo Centre, you could see delegates from notable corporations and organisations with event tags hanging around their necks as they prepared to thrill attendees with their innovative solutions. You could also see our elegant VerifyMe booth standing tall and proud amongst them, strategically set up close to the main event hall, drawing crowds of attendees effortlessly.
Day 1 was for the Money and DeFi Summit, and it surpassed our expectations. The room was charged with anticipation from the attendees as African fintech leaders, platform and thought-leaders took to the stage to talk about the opportunities in FinTech, Crypto and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) in the Continent. The CEO/Co-founder of VerifyMe Nigeria, Esigie Aguele, gave an insightful speech about digital identity trends that will shape the future. His speech highlighted the pivotal role identity would play in shaping the future of open finance and the opportunities and collaborations we can tap into to help the ecosystem actualize its potential.
Here are some highlights from his speech:
· Going into the future, financial institutions seeking to grow their businesses can leverage companies like VerifyMe to onboard customers remotely and securely end-to-end.
· We will see less of the current hybrid transactions (where transactions originate digitally and terminate offline) and more end-to-end digital transactions and services.
· A trend towards digital identity cards, carrying your identity on your phone, and even making payments by looking at the camera will continue to grow significantly, powered by trust infrastructures like VerifyMe.
· Digital identity solutions will start incorporating ID meta datasets that identify not just who a person is but what services can be provided for them.
We’ll share some more insights in future posts. You can also watch his speech here.
Day 2 did not disappoint, and it gave off the same level of energy and excitement. Though our CEO wasn’t on stage, his speech of the previous day had aroused a lot of interest and curiosity in the attendees who were now queuing in front of our booth, waiting to learn more about our solutions and how they can sign up. By the end of the summit, one question lingered on, “when are you opening a branch in Kenya?”
The fourth edition of the Africa Tech Summit was successful and very rewarding. The Kenyan hospitality was second to none, and we flew out of Nairobi fulfilled and inspired by the thought that:
· Africa will continue to rise as a tech investment destination.
· Fintechs will continue to grow, and we’ll be sure to see more of them in the future.
· Digital Identity will be a major driver for tech growth in Africa.
· The Africa Tech Summit was a good platform to network with other tech leaders in Africa and we can’t wait for the next edition.
Other notable companies at the event were Paystack, Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, Google, Microsoft, Binance, Credpal, Patricia, ThankUCash amongst others. We enjoyed the networking sessions and look forward to collaborating with them in the foreseeable future.
