Q&A | Empowering African Builders to Address African Challenges on Their Own Terms – A Chat with Sustainability and Innovation Lead, Cardano Foundation

The Africa Tech Summit (ATS) 2026 is just around the corner, and anticipation for this leading African tech event is already high.

BitKE caught up with the Cardano Foundation, one of the key sponsors of the upcoming summit, to talk about the Foundation’s successes and challenges over the years across Africa and upcoming plans for the organization.

Alex Maaza, the Sustainability and Innovation Lead at the Cardano Foundation spoke to the Managing Editor at BitKE on the organization’s past experiences across Africa and future plans.


Use code: BitcoinKE10 to get 10% off tickets.

Link: https://www.africatechsummit.com/nairobi/register/

Here is the exclusive Q&A.

BitKE: Lets start with introductions – Who you are, what you do at Cardano, and your journey to joining Cardano

Alex*: My name is Alex Maaza, I’m the Sustainability and Innovation Lead at the Cardano Foundation.*

I work on building partnerships across the development, humanitarian, and public sectors, focusing on how blockchain technology can support real-world use cases aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. I also coordinate the Foundation’s engagement with ecosystem funding initiatives, supporting community-led innovation.

I was raised in South Africa, where I studied economics and development at the University of Cape Town. I then cut my teeth enabling innovation cooperation at the Swiss Embassy in Tshwane, primarily focusing on leveraging the best of the Swiss innovation ecosystem to the benefit of countries in Southern Africa. For over seven years now, my work has been enabling innovation through public-private partnerships – first for a nation state (Switzerland), now for what I’d call a budding global network nation (Cardano).

What drew me to Cardano specifically is its model for pushing power to the edges.

Too often in development, communities are treated as recipients rather than partners. Cardano’s approach is different – through its governance and funding mechanisms, it treats communities as stakeholders with real agency. For Africa, that matters. We don’t need another platform built elsewhere and exported here. We need infrastructure that empowers African builders to solve African problems on their own terms.

BitKE: What is the role of the Cardano Foundation?

Alex*: The Cardano Foundation is an independent, Swiss-based non-profit dedicated to advancing the Cardano blockchain ecosystem. Our focus is on driving real-world adoption by working with businesses, governments, and institutions to solve practical problems – from climate action to digital transformation across multiple sectors. As a mission-driven organization, we prioritize the long-term resilience and sustainability of Cardano as a public good.*

Cardano Foundation is one of the 4 entities that contribute to shape the future of Cardano together with a wider community: CF, IOG, EMURGO and INTERSECT.

A flagship example is our partnership with UNDP which led to the SDG Blockchain Accelerator. The Cardano Foundation was a key initiator of this programme, with Cardano’s community treasury providing catalytic funding through Project Catalyst. Now in its second cohort, the accelerator has matched Cardano builders with UNDP country offices to pilot real solutions.

In Tanzania, Thallo is designing the national carbon credit registry – targeting 50,000 credits in year one – while Grinplus is bringing transparency to electricity metering for Zanzibar’s 2 million residents.

Atlas Ledger is working with youth groups and women’s cooperatives in Burkina Faso to finance 10,000 trees across ten regions.

Genius Tags is strengthening humanitarian aid coordination in Malawi, Cubid Protocol is powering solar mini-grid payments in rural Nigeria, and Green Giraffe Zambia is building market pathways for Angolan smallholders.

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BitKE: What has Cardano undertaken over the years in terms of activities and achievements since your African entrance in 2018?

Alex*: Cardano’s early Africa engagement was led by IOG and EMURGO Africa, focusing on government partnerships and startup investment. EMURGO’s Adaverse vehicle deployed capital into projects like Kotani Pay in Kenya and NODO, which now reaches over 300,000 blockchain enthusiasts across 14 countries.*

But the more significant story is what emerged from Cardano’s community itself.

Consider: when Cardano held its Constitutional Convention in December 2024, Nairobi was one of only two host cities globally, alongside Buenos Aires. One-fifth of the 120 delegates came from Africa. Fund 12 of Project Catalyst – one of the largest decentralized grant funding rounds in crypto – was launched from Nairobi. The Intersect Regional Hub opened there in September 2024, training community members on Cardano governance and related topics.

The results show in the numbers: roughly 150 Africa-related projects have been funded through Project Catalyst, distributing approximately $2.5-3 million through community governance. DirectEd, a Nairobi-based nonprofit, has trained over 300 students through coding bootcamps and runs the African Blockchain Championship – 1,500+ contestants across the continent competing for $30,000 in prizes, funded by the Cardano treasury.

Landano, which won Battle of the Builders at the 2024 Cardano Summit, is working with traditional chiefs in Ghana and migrating 80,000 land rights records onto Cardano in Mozambique. ZenGate is building traceability tools that help Nigerian farmers prove the origin and quality of their produce to access better markets, while DigiFarm is deploying satellite-powered agricultural dApps for smallholders in Kenya and Tanzania. Lido Nation established Kenya’s first blockchain lab through Catalyst, translated 50+ educational articles into Swahili, and launched ‘Jifunze na Tuzo’ – a Swahili learn-to-earn programme.

WADA and the team behind the Cardano Africa Tech Summit have reached over 1,200 developers through hackathons that invert the usual model – starting by asking communities what problems they actually face, then building solutions.

Even Cardano’s consensus layer embodies this principle of global solidarity. The “With Refugees” stake pool (WRFGS) – the first and largest UN blockchain impact staking initiative – channels staking rewards to UNHCR’s most underfunded crises, many of them on this continent: South Sudan, the Sahel, the Great Lakes region. With around 6.5 million ADA delegated and more than 200 supporters, it’s the most capitalized impact staking initiative in the industry. In May 2025, this evolved into the world’s first regulated financial product converting staking rewards into continuous humanitarian funding – launched on the SIX Swiss Exchange and recognized at the Global Refugee Forum. Mission-driven pools like Proof of Africa, GROW, and Lighthouse extend this model to communities in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and Malawi.

Use code: BitcoinKE10 to get 10% off tickets.

Link: https://www.africatechsummit.com/nairobi/register/

BitKE: What are some of the lessons learned (from successes and failures) over the years as a Foundation, particularly in Africa?

Alex*: The core lesson – and this isn’t unique to Cardano – is that technology alone doesn’t solve anything. Partnerships only deliver when there’s a genuine pain point being addressed and a willingness, politically and economically, to follow through beyond a pilot. Reducing costs, speeding up processes, unlocking previously inaccessible value – these matter. Pilots designed to showcase innovation tend to die as pilots. The continent also presents real infrastructure constraints – connectivity, electricity, device access – that can’t be engineered around from a distance.*

The approach to scoping can help.

The UNDP SDG Blockchain Accelerator pairs Cardano ecosystem builders with UN country offices, but the starting point is always a pain point that has to be identified locally. A transparent carbon market infrastructure in Tanzania, a more coordinated approach in Malawi, payment rails for off-grid energy in Nigeria – these are challenges that blockchain happens to address well

The Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2025 methodology captures this shift. Instead of arriving with solutions, the programme spent months asking communities across 12 cities: what challenges do you actually face? The hackathons that followed were built from those answers.

The other lesson is simpler but not obvious to many outside the continent: Africa is not a country. What works in Lagos may not work in Addis. The Sahel faces different constraints than the East African Community. Trying to run a unified “Africa strategy” is a recipe for failure. What scales is backing local builders, giving them access to resources and networks, and trusting them to know their own markets.

BitKE: What is your take on the current state of the Web3 ecosystem in Africa and globally?

Alex*: Stablecoins are here to stay – but in Africa, they’re not just a store of value, they’re trade infrastructure. In 2024, stablecoins accounted for 43% of all digital asset transactions on the continent. When only 15% of African trade happens between African countries – largely because traders have to convert to USD just to pay a supplier in a neighbouring state – you see the problem. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can’t deliver on its promise without solving cross-border payments first.*

The infrastructure is being built – both traditional and decentralized. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System connects 18 countries for local currency settlement. The AfCFTA Secretariat is piloting ADAPT – a blockchain-based platform for digital trade credentials and stablecoin payments – in Kenya and Ghana, with a target of reaching all 55 member states by 2035. Seven African nations now have full regulatory clarity for digital assets. The CV VC Africa Blockchain Report makes the point clearly: blockchain in Africa is driving from the bottom up – essential industries propelling adoption, not technology looking for problems.

This is where Cardano’s model matters. African blockchain ventures captured 7.4% of all VC funding on the continent in 2024 – more than double the global average. But venture capital still concentrates in five countries and comes with the usual strings: investor priorities, exit timelines, and external governance. Cardano offers something different. A community treasury approaching $1.5 billion, where token holders vote directly on funding allocation.

The results are tangible.

ZenGate is building traceability so Nigerian farmers can prove provenance and access better markets – funded through Project Catalyst.

DigiFarm is deploying satellite-powered agricultural tools for smallholders in Kenya and Tanzania. Under AfCFTA rules of origin, proving the origin of goods determines tariff eligibility. Traceability becomes trade infrastructure.

Thallo is working with the Tanzanian government on a national carbon registry through the UNDP SDG Blockchain Accelerator – a programme the Cardano community voted to fund. Landano is working with traditional chiefs in Ghana and bringing 80,000 land rights records on-chain in Mozambique.

Africa hosts nine of the world’s twenty fastest-growing economies. Yet it still attracts less than 1% of global venture capital. That gap won’t close by waiting for external investors to discover the continent. It closes when Africans have direct access to funding and other resources – when they’re building the infrastructure, not just using what others provide.

That’s what Cardano’s architecture enables. African agency through meaningful participation in and shared ownership of the global public digital infrastructure that is Cardano.

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BitKE: What are Cardano Foundation’s future plans for the continent in 2026 and beyond?

Alex*: The Cardano community recently ratified its 2030 Vision through on-chain governance – a process that involved over 700 participants shaping a shared direction. The vision positions Cardano as infrastructure for mission-critical, real-world applications. The next step is localising that vision – defining what 2026 priorities should look like, both geographically and thematically. That’s another opportunity for Cardano builders to shape the roadmap, not just follow it.*

The governance mechanisms are already operational. Nairobi hosted the Constitutional Convention. Fund 12 launched from Kenya. Intersect’s regional hub is training local communities in Cardano governance and related topics. The funding pathways are open

What 2026 promises is these foundations maturing: more builders accessing the ecosystem, more pilots transitioning to production, more voices from this continent in protocol governance. Not because Cardano is doing something for Africa, but because Africans are doing something with Cardano.

The Cardano Africa Tech Summit on February 13th is exactly that. Teams are already building, funded by the community, solving problems they identified themselves

There’s even a workshop to help shape the 2030 vision and 2026 priorities. I’ll be there. I hope your readers will be, too!

Use code: BitcoinKE10 to get 10% off tickets.

Link: https://www.africatechsummit.com/nairobi/register/

Inside Cardano’s Plans for Africa

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