The impact of blockchain in this part of the world, can’t be overemphasized. If there is a technology that can turn the tides for developing and under-developing nations, it is definitely blockchain.
For Africa to take its place in the global digital world, it has to empower its teeming youth population and women.
With the resource pool in Africa, there is still a visible line of poverty on the continent and this springs from factors including inadequate support for entrepreneurs and SMEs, huge financial inclusion deficit, limited access to the digital space especially for the underdeveloped parts.
For the developing parts of the continent, challenges ranging from cross-border payments, remittances and international trade still persist.
Identifying these and related challenges, Tajiri, an African blockchain technology-powered impact project is set to drive a real productive economy and stimulate industrial revolution on the continent.
In a recent chat with Tajiri’s COO, Fred Lawanson, we learnt how the platform is exploring the best of the digital and real productive economy to create streams of jobs/income for Africans.
Can you tell us how it all started?
Tajiri is actually a Swahili word we chose to represent what we stand for and it simply means wealth.
In some other climes, it means something else, but all tend to relate to money, wealth, and the likes.
At a particular time, we were talking with a couple of friends, and the question of how we could generate some extra streams of income popped up.
One of the interesting answers we got was that the case of being a problem solver definitely brings in opportunities to fetch money.
We started the brainstorming session, we looked at Africa as the scope, because that’s where we want to operate and found out that Africa has the largest youth population.
One of the problems we noticed is the area of youth unemployment which leads to several other things.
While trying to solve that, we also realized that there were a couple of other challenges, thus we came to the conclusion that if we are able to solve primarily the economic problem in Africa, we would have ended up solving a major part of the problem.
We then started thinking within that scope, thus we were able to identify seven major problems that tend to relate with the scope.
One of them was the problem of payment and remittance, and we found out that it was much easier and less expensive for one to do business with someone outside Africa.
Meanwhile, the difficulty experienced within the African continent is due to a lack of infrastructure (most of which are manufactured outside Africa).
These acts stifle or limit what Africans can do in terms of international trade, payments and remittances.
This is as a result of the way the whole payment process is structured i.e moving from one place to another before it finally gets to the final recipient, even as at that, there are additional fees attached to it. Thus making it more expensive to execute businesses within Africa.
The second problem is that of exclusion in the digital space. I belong to a couple of digital platforms and there is a feeling that Africa is strategically excluded from the global digital space.
For instance, Nigerians can make payments using PayPal accounts, but the reverse is the case for Nigerians who want to receive.
There is that sort of subtle strategic exclusion from digital platforms that can generate income for you, however, these platforms will specifically mention that certain countries are excluded from some activities.
The world is actually evolving digitally, so Africa needs to play actively in that space as well. So we need to also create our own structures for us to say, we need to start creating opportunities for Africa and for Africans.
The third problem we’re able to identify is the limitation with regard to financial services. You know in Africa, the ratio of people that are unbanked outweighs those that are banked.
That tells you that the majority who would have loved to do business, do not have access to financial services, let alone loans in addition to not owning bank accounts.
These people do not have any existing relationships with the banks and if we can not give the kind of platform where people can actually have access to services such as; financing, accounting, legal and so on which are naturally beyond the reach of small scale entrepreneurs, why don’t we create some kind of platform that could allow people to have access to such services without having to pay an arm or leg?
So that is one area we’re looking at, and then when it comes to actually making money in the digital space, Africans are actually limited in that space.
Why blockchain technology?
Coupled with some other problems that we identified, we decided to come up with a digital platform which we call Tajiri and for ease of access, we chose blockchain.
First, it gives us ease because naturally what should have been obtainable is that we should have gone to each country in Africa and established an outreach there.
But blockchain gives us the opportunity to connect to everyone in Africa and actually work from a specific location and it also gives that transparency.
Tajiri happens to be one of the very few projects that have cryptocurrency tokens backed by real business activities that actually generate income.
That is a plus for us because we just don’t want to go doing the regular blockchain meme tokens that don’t add value which most people are used to.
We want something that is actually backed by business activities. So we are rest assured that everyone holding the Tajiri token is not getting value based on speculations or forces of demand and supply, but actually based on the level of business activities that is supporting it.
With the way Tajiri is structured, the ecosystem will allow us to use the major cryptocurrency tokens, but the primary one especially for a medium of exchange is the Tajiri token.
The flagship platform for Tajiri is the AfriPayX which was created to fill the gap between traditional financial institutions and the DeFi platforms on blockchain.
So we want to merge both worlds together, by removing limitations, or challenges that people face on either side.
So with AfriPayX app and web platform, users can do remittances, make payments including utility bills, staking, and so on.
As we continue with the development of the app, then the users will have an opportunity to do much more.
But part of the major things we want to achieve with the platform is for users to be able to make payments and remittances in the most affordable and convenient way as it isn’t limited to the regular or the traditional way, users can also use the blockchain way as well.
Even when it comes to the conversion of currencies, users don’t have to be bothered with looking for exchangers, as whoever they are sending the money to will receive it in their local currency if they choose.
We have several other platforms but Afripayx is our flagship product.
Any other of your platforms that you would like to mention?
We have a business utility app with business card management system called BossKard which is similar to messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram,
The core functionality of BossKard is to disrupt the business card space, where you don’t necessarily have to print your business card to share it.
It’s about having a digital business card that you can share, In addition to that, it also affords the users of BossKard the opportunity to have targeted advertising globally, where you can now structure your advertising audience to suit your purpose, you can also have a global database where you can query for providers of goods and services, so long as they are using BossKard.
There is also an income-generating opportunity, which we pay with our token for the usage of that app. So when you use that app, you generate an income passively.
Then we have what we call Creataj. Created specifically for digital content providers. it is a marketplace, where people can buy your digital content or subscribe to your digital content.
One can either subscribe to or just make a one-off purchase whatever the case is. So it’s primarily created for African content owners, for them to buy and sell.
We also have the African Open Markets, where you buy products using our token. Following the purchase, you get your money back in installments for up to 90% of the amount paid for it, so it’s more like a cashback.
How is Tajiri empowering women and children?
Basically, the core audience for every other thing that I’ve mentioned earlier, are the youth and the women. But in addition, we are also providing some form of training and we will be having more in the near future.
There are different opportunities in the Tajiri ecosystem that gives room for passive income generation.
First is capital appreciation, because the token will be traded on several blockchain exchanges.
They will be traded on both centralized and decentralized exchanges. And because of that, people can actually generate income from the trade of the token alone. Users can also stake and earn from it.
There is room for sharing in the revenue generated from transaction fees which will be ploughed back into the ecosystem to share with Tajiri token holders.
So women could leverage Tajiri platform to earn extra income for themselves.
Any other thing you like to add?
The Tajiri token is on its final stage to getting listed on a centralised exchange but already listed on PancakeSwap, and because we actually created this project primarily for Africans, we want to encourage all Africans especially the youths to go get as much as they can now that the price is very low.
Secondly, we encourage the youths to follow us on all our social media handles (@tajiriglobal) and telegram groups for updates; on giveaways, competitions, bounty etc or participate in our ongoing Valentine giveaway and Africa Rap Kombat specifically on @Afripayx for Facebook and Instagram pages.
We can assure our users of a multiple turn around because as our platform is close to completion, we are also positioned for greater things.
In addition, there is a protocol in the Tajiri smart contract called “Reflective protocol” that allows for a 1% deduction on every transaction that is then shared amongst all token holders.
Finally, we have the Tajiri Bounty, which is a reward token different from the Tajiri token. This is used to reward users for just using our platform.
So you can actually accumulate that and convert it to whatever currency you want to convert it to or use it to buy something on our platform, or whatever it is you want to do with it.
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