In the recent past we have seen how several banks from Africa are taking precaution measures and governments are issuing bans with the aim of avoiding dealings associated with cryptocurrency transactions. Despite this we have several other nations in Africa who have embraced the Blockchain and cryptocurrency technology and some governments are already taking advantage of the Blockchain technology and incorporating it into their systems. Kenya is one of these nations that are leveraging the Blockchain technology and it has proved to provide solutions to many different problems in the society. In Kenya, The Kenya National Land Commission has introduced a Blockchain network that provides transparency in land ownership. Issues of land owners being displaced are quite common. Reason being compromised government officials can easily tamper with stored information that proves that land belongs to a specific person. The same corrupt individuals can use cartels to create duplicates of title deeds.
If banks could embrace this new technology they would reap big from it as it provides 100% record keeping, faster and secure transactions. According to Bigdata-madesipmle.com the banks greatly benefit from this technology as they will record a 30% reduction in infrastructure costs and could operate on a 10% head count reduction. 90% of the banks worldwide are already embracing this.
When it comes to proving our identity the process can be exhausting. Several people in Africa especially those in refugees’ camps lack documents to prove their identity. Some lack an identity since their documents might have gotten lost due to natural calamities, some lack enough money to file birth registration documents. How can these people open bank accounts, get jobs or even go to school without a prove of their identity? However these individuals have mobile phones and might be connected to internet in one way or another. These is just the major requirement for Blockchain. A Blockchain-based mobile identity solution would work just perfectly fine. This identity information can be retrieved from any point in the world at any time. This data is secured as it cannot be altered.
Smart contracts, programs stored on a Blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met, are used to execute an agreement automatically to enable all participants approve of the outcomes immediately. This eliminates any form of intermediaries and are very fast. Middlemen contribution is null and void as contracts can be self-executed, contracts can now be faster, cheaper and without any worries of middlemen manipulations.
Another company that would greatly leverage from the Blockchain technology other than the banks, are the insurance companies. Blockchain will definitely change how insurance companies operate. Companies that dabble in insurance frauds on the side and contribute to the increasing insurance premiums will have it rough when the insurance companies incorporate the Blockchain technology into their systems. Blockchain will equate to cost savings, transparency, efficient gains and fraud elimination. It would be easy to verify claims leaving no room to cook the books.
Through Blockchain, consumers would now be directly connected to their services. Co-founder of ethereum and bitcoin magazine, Vitalik Buterin, opines that most technologies tend to put worker on secondary positions with very boring tasks with low status and poor payments.
“ instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, Blockchain puts uber out of the job and lets the taxi driver work with the customer directly.” He says. This is evident that Blockchain does not make jobs redundant, however, they workers become absolutely essential.
Blockchain comes in hardy and hastens the procedures of acquiring property in the real estate industry. If you have been involved in purchasing a house, you know how the work is stressful and tedious, with a lot of intermediaries involved. The involvement of banks, municipalities, lawyers and the government too, can cost a lot of money for the whole process. Blockchain eliminates the intermediaries, reduces the paperwork drastically cutting down the costs involved. With Blockchain only one legal document is required, this document cannot be altered in any way whatsoever and involves the seller and the buyer only, eliminating any cases of fraud. The new owner of the property can provide evidence of property ownership at any time in future.
Blockchain has also come in handy in humanitarian activities. Aid can now be sent to the desired location or individual directly and very fast. The CEOs of the charity organizations or other corrupt humanitarian field men who use the aid for their own selfish needs are eliminated. Once again Blockchain helps to eliminate the middlemen. The aid in form of money or cryptocurrency can be traced from scratch to the end and can also be monitored if it is being spend on what it was meant for. Cryptocurrencies such as World Causecoin; which is involved in humanitarian projects such as The Goat Foundation which is giving a pair of goats to poor widows across Africa starting with Kenya; Food for Africa which will provide free agricultural education to farmers to help improve their production and learn value addition; Africa Children Hospital which will build several maternity and children hospitals across Africa, can easily monitored how their projects are faring on through the Blockchain database.
The health sector can also reap benefits from the Blockchain technology. Information is readily available and can be accessed at any time across the world. Medical information such as medical history, allergies, family history, lifestyle factors and anything that can help doctors make the right diagnosis is stored in the Blockchain ledger. The costs are also cut down as one won’t need to carry out the same tests over and over again. A lot paperwork is also eliminated, so just in case a patient lost a medical document treatment can still go on. In Kenya, the Kenyan government is attempting to adopt the Blockchain technology into the health system.
The Blockchain technology is here to revolutionize data management processes and it is advisable for governments especially from the African developing countries to aspire to adopt this technology in order to offer effective and efficient services to its citizens as far as data management is concerned.
