Keynote at the University of Jos

I was invited as the keynote speaker during the University of Jos village hostel week which was observed from the 7th -13th April where I spoke on the topic: The urgent need for blockchain solutions in a growing economy (use case of Nigeria) on 9th of April. I started by giving an overview of what blockchain is and gave out some of the innovations that came from the technology and how the technology is gaining acceptance in some of the parts of the world. Pointed out the fact that a lot of people who are aware of what the technology can do in Nigeria have been trying to get the government to accept the fact that blockchain has come to stay and its high time Nigeria begins to accept and deploy the technology because it is the catalyst the country’s economy needs.
I also spoke about how the technology can be deployed in the various sectors of the economy like health, agriculture, transportation, finance and education; and also highlighted how this technology can increase efficiency and make governmental systems very effective.
I highlighted some of the use cases the students can consider and begin to deploy in the school; things like a voting apps for elections in the various student bodies in the school, apps for payment of school fees to avoid paying school fees into the wrong hands (some students were victim of this before), having academic records on the blockchain to avoid forgery and false claims and for easy transfer of academic documents from one place to the other.
I took some time to explain what aeternity is doing in making the blockchain space and how aeternity is making blockchain accessible to everyone regardless of whether you are techy or not. Taking note of the professors that were at the event like the Dean of student affairs, I had to explain how activities on the blockchain can remain private by using state channels which is already possible on the aeternity’s blockchain and to make things easy by also using oracle. I took time to talk about how aeternity is helping startups to come to limelight through the Starfleet promgram.
In attendance were some professors/Lecturers from some of the departments in the school. I have been invited by the Dean to talk some more on how the school can benefit more from aeternity and how the school can begin to use blockchain services.

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Hey @Stephensunday.chain, that is so cool, thank you!
You presented so many different aspects and use-cases of the technology, it may have been overwhelming for people who have never heard of blockchain before…
What were the reactions, what questions you got from the audience? Tell us more :slight_smile:

Best,
Albena

You are right about newbies being overwhelmed but I had to talk about those use cases because I had some lecturers and some professors from the university and also the Dean of Student affairs. I felt it was an opportunity for me to talk on how blockchain can be used within the university almost immediately. The Dean asked me to come and see him so we can talk some more about blockchain and look at the possibility of having some collaborations with aeternity.
He particular asked “What are the regulations in Nigeria on blockchain? How easy is it for people to use blockchain because from you presentation you outline very good advantages of the technology but how can the common man use blockchain?” Another interesting question was "How ready is the aeternity tech team to help someone who wants to deploy an aepp on her blockchain and at what cost will they do that?
These were the most interesting questions to me.

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Yes, I understand it’s quite challenging to satisfy such different audiences.
Great job though on attracting the attention of the Dean!

We at æternity are looking forward to useful and interesting æpps being built on the AE blockchain so we are here to help to everyone willing to do that. Just advise all developers to come to the Forum so they can talk to the team and ask questions if needed.

What do you mean exactly when asking “at what cost will they do that?” - You know by now that our devs would not charge for pieces of advice or support :slight_smile:

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