Designing Culture-Sensitive Hackathons for Empowering African Youth with Ethereum

Transcript

[Music] all right so our next speaker is the founder of eth Acra uh she's also a part-time academic researcher uh studied at the University of legenstein uh master's degree in information systems I'd like to bring onto the stage abna with the silent in her name all right come up on stage than so much thank you so much for the wonderful introduction um I'm abna and I'm happy

to present topic of ongoing research which I have um started beginning of this year the topic is designing he culture sensitive hackaton for empowering African youth with ethereum blockchain sorry the image here shows on top different people all attending a hackerone top right we have East Global London one is in Mumbai other one is east of Elison and the top right is um in botan people coming together Gathering brainstorming working on a project image here you see London um Zurich City abam

another image on top people um attending hackathon in Acra as well as in arra this is a Lego City and this is um city of Acra the question is hackaton are Universal you can host them in basically any cities as we have see what commonalities are that people come together time restricted working on a project with a goal mostly of winning but as you have can see on the images the cities vastly differently the question that comes across should all hackaton be the same is there one size fits all across different cultures cities

Etc question is I don't think so and here is why the observations of mainly four different categories people perceive have a different way like time perceptions is perceived differently Communication channel is UM vley the image on the left is a billboard that we um we uploaded on I think at the most popular intersection in Acra advertising hate hackaton is happening after this announcement the participation number ex not exploded but increased people perceive billboard as a legitimate Communication channel which is why we advertise there in Switzerland on Lisbon

you really see any billboard word advertising a Heaton collaboration style is also vastly different in other cultures it's more like where like um in your like Western context a lot of people they attend um alone maybe they'll find someone or they do solo hacking in other cultures coming together in a group already formed this group is very integral part in participating in a hackaton so they have a different concept of collaboration style as well as comp competition is also perceived differently winning yes but winning in a group is Paramount than just winning as a solo hacker these are just observations that we came across

from personal attending hackaton people ask myself why Africa well I mean if you look at the demographics I think I think this speaks volume the African population current is 1.4 billion 70 75% under 35 years it's a huge huge youth population there are median age 19 years youngest countries in the world are most in Africa fastest growing cities mega cities 17 out of the 20 are based in Africa the expected population by 2015 is 2.6 billion the these demographics indicate there's a huge uh youth um youth sector in in the in the

in the demographics of the African countries and this youth um I think if anyone can find tools in order to activate to to get the best out of it it's I think it's going to win the race basically why am I doing this research partly of because I organized The Ether car last year and I've come across several observations and I was thinking okay are my observations is coincidential or is there any scientific proof um behind it the specific questions I'm aim to answer is what are the specific question

how to design hackaton to empower Youth and what we talk about designing hackaton means execution part from venue location Communication channel how to um how to um storytelling Etc think the research is important because youth contribute um large contribution of Youth to the African economy as the demographic tabl show before and the research objective is how to design culture sensitive hackaton that c to different cultural needs of um each region again there questions that we want to answer and Al we want to explain

how Heck on components from hack manual resources event kickoff structure Etc differs across cultures and what are the findings and the results should be that we're bringing out sorry we're bringing out a Playbook with the findings where we can distribute within the eum community because we it's like there's no oneid fits all and in order to have effective hackaton are integral part not only um for um technical aspect but also it enables a great ENT point in the E ecosystem it's a new way of learning learning about the technology as well as about the community which is why they

need to be designed per they need to be designed best effective way in order to have the the biggest um impact how we are we decided we want to do the research on three different um methodology the first one is going to be an online survey where we will have different sections for example the first one we ask before the Heaton what was the motivation why did they sign up intrinsic extrinsic intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation how many heckadon experience did they have before during the heckadon what was the overall experience that they have how did the collaboration on between the hackaton

change was it like more topown approach is it more like loose like more decentralized everybody in the team is doing whatever they want to do and the second section is after the heckadon what is the outcome what is the impact the questions that we asking are open question close questions as well as Li Scala questions the second part is of the interview of the methodology uh it consists of doing interviews with key stakeholders participants um sponsors how have they perceived this because online survey doesn't really capture all the information that we need and sometimes people are more open when you ask them questions because they feel

more familiar they feel more comfortable maybe they also don't understand the the online survey um perfectly well which is why we decide to um interview and the third observation the third methodology that we going to apply is observation where we just sit into the Hall observe how the whole atmosphere was we are taking field notes um just like not interrupting the the people but just being having objective perspective and analyzing the whole scene I mean the ideal expected outcome we have summarized into five uh points

first of all we will come up with the Playbook The Playbook will consist how to design on-site etherum Focus hackaton to constitute accessibility inclusiv inclusiveness impactful events for young participant an we also want to figure out which components make up a successful culture sensitive hecon and how to get how to get the most out the out of the Strategic design we also want to learn from every unique um culture for building a community also um will definitely have an impact on Innovation by designing hackaton which um cater to the cultural needs will

definitely increase adoption of ethereum because if people are not able to people only use something when they have perceived usefulness and I think this comes when you understand how um people have a different concept of of time collaboration Etc by addressing the African needs we also might have a diverse solution that will address the ethereum challenges if you always host hackaton in the western contest in Lisbon in Paris in London Etc you might always have the same way of how a themm can be used and I think you're missing out a huge large population which different definitely have different challenges this might the

findings might when we design hackaton in the best effective way we also get findings of how to address Regional Tech ecosystem challenges because there other companies they also want to do hackaton but as of now maybe they have not found out the right access the right entty Point how to exit execute them this will all can be summarized these five um outcome that we expect to achieve and from a scientific perspective contribution that we're going to have is like in terms of innovation Theory we definitely want to see like the temporality theory as well as designing hackaton that is accessible coordinated and also timing because if

you don't if you do not design hackaton that cater to the cultural needs I think you're missing out a huge like missing out a point and you do you don't make the whole event accessible are there any questions like this is just like a gr um overview of what we have intended my goal here is to take in consideration what do you want to know out of this research it's an ongoing research we have started but we are still able to cater to feedback from participants what are you most interested what do you think um is there something that I have not listed up that

you think might be of your um interest and maybe we can also cater to cater to the questions um yeah I leave the stage to the audience any questions interest points yes sure so what are the main differences is u in the structure of hackathons in different cultural areas like U how you are like organizing it the time schedule mainly and things like that the H from as of now what we have observed is for example the haon that we

designed uh organized in Ghana was we started on a Thursday morning we ended on Saturday Sundays is no good it's reserved for family gathering it ET so if you do anything on a Sunday people will not show up and this was a huge huge like eye opener for me it's like today is Saturday if I had to talk tomorrow I will do it and this like bear this culture difference in mind and also we had hackaton where we started in the morning we closed in the evening because it was like venue Hall not like sleeping there overnight is something that is not very culturally embedded so it's it it was just like a different

approach it was a hackathon but vastly different than the hackathon I experienced when I went to London two like two months ago and also um how should I say it's like people have higher sense of collaboration team is very important nobody came up without having a team already formed it's like and it's something like when I hack I just go sign up I hack with different people different CI this all the time but I think I'm more like cultur maybe so I grew up here but someone who maybe grew up more like in other region it's just like how they feel comfortable and I think it's important

to have this sensitivity like awareness of this yeah does it answer your question any other question hi and thank you this is really fascinating to imagine the hackleton in Africa and I guess it's just you're also like on top of an iceberg which also include leap frogging of technology in some regions and so I just wonder like since Africa is so big so there weree so many different kind of communities how do you imagining this continuing and maybe like in also like in rural regions

or you know I'm very naive in my question no but interesting question we will start first in West Africa Ghana and Nigeria because this is where um how should I say most onsite hackaton um have been executed so far um and also this region GH Nigeria have similar cultural like a framework both English speaking countries um both um yeah in West Africa I think we did where we start we will also have a different uh data sample for Eastern region Africa that's why it's not Africa as a whole it's different um on region because i'

I've lived in Cape Town and Cape Town is a complete different um um scenario and also French speaking countries frankophone countries is also a whole new um um topics so from a scientific approach you cannot it's you cannot transfer the findings that you find in Western Africa one to one to the eastern African context but we will have Regional um findings observations and also stating in the research that it's the Playbook is not one siiz for it's all again it's based on the region where we can draw like um um the findings are transferable does it answer your

question yes yeah I mean if you have more questions go for it sure I'm I'm also curious about eum's motivation and um if I could you answer that or like um how and how how much is theum doing in Africa and and so on um interesting question they are there but um how should I say it is it it is [Music] um I mean I don't really have numbers it compared to for example binance Alor I think binance is is more there from a from a endus point but I think from a

developer Point um perspective I don't really have figures but ethum it's it's it's there it's it's it's more distinct how should I say but the ecosystem is growing it still it's in in its infancy but um yeah I think um but this research will definitely help addressing the challenge addressing um um the the the goal because I mean e slogan is the infinite garden and I think the Garden in West Africa is different than the garden here in Eastern Europe as well as the Garden West Africa and it's so I think it's at one size it'sit all it's best to know understand how the Garden in West Africa works by paying attention

and based on that you can design hackaton that are actually effective otherwise you will definitely lose out any other questions I hope by next year so um I can present the findings but data collection takes time so this is maybe not a question but um what I guess s well sort of question suggestion but first a remark that if you look at all the big crypto conferences that you can think of it they're all in basically Europe and the US and then occasionally you've got

Dubai and Singapore but that's I mean Singapore in the end is not really Asia it's a very special case right and I think there was one big ethereum conference in uh Shanghai at one stage but in the end it's it's basically Europe uh uh us Singapore Dubai I I don't think there was ever any huge of conference like International Conference in Africa as far as I know maybe there was I so um I would say you know as far as I've know vitalic is still here you know you should probably grab him and say hey guys you know let's do a big conference in Africa someday I mean it's such a it's it's a continent yeah and that's the first thing and the second is um in in the context of of of hackathons okay

again uh hackathons it's the same with conf the big hackathons are not in Africa uh so I think a goal should be to say well can we can we somehow get you know I mean I'm sure there are hackathons but I suspect not many Europeans or Americans or others are going to these hackathons in Africa right not not yet I mean I think that's why this is that the second edition is happening again this year um yes we need to make more like advertisement and I think I'm definitely advocating that next defcom should be held I think we we have this Devon um end of November in Bangkok um in two years maybe next Dev

connect but the next Dev con should definitely be held in any major African City Nairobi Acra Etc I say grab right I make I will personally um ad do advocacy yes yeah and and this I mean to get people in hackathon not just T them there is one Acra you need the you need the uh you know support I mean if if you can get say okay someone like vial some of the big names will be there then some people from Europe and the us or Asia will come uh if you don't have that they will not come so yeah definitely I mean we did last year we had like um um like a them Foundation was there

the graph was there be were there some names are there and this year more will follow but I think I yeah that's why I'm doing this research to just increase awareness and preaching the gospel and hopefully 2026 deathcon is going to happen in major African City I hope you will also attend you thank you abna greatly appreciate it thanks for having me yeah