Patrick Awori, founder and CEO at Imaginarium, a Kenyan-based FinTech behind the Circle, a virtual savings platform, hosted another episode of Voice of FinTech: Africa Series. Patrick spoke to Umar Sebyala, Uganda Ecosystem lead at cLabs, working on Celo, about democratizing access to financial services leveraging blockchain.

Africa's young and tech-savvy population has already embraced mobile money and is now looking to blockchain technology and cryptocurrency to redefine the digital economy. Numerous decentralized finance applications have emerged as possible solutions to unlocking economic health and prosperity across the continent, especially for the 350 million adults who are still excluded from accessing meaningful financial services (about 17% of the global population). As collective sentiment about blockchain technology rises, so does the debate surrounding its evolution from hype to mainstream in Africa.
In this episode, Umar Sebyala walks us through the Celo Foundation's mission to empower anyone with a smartphone to access financial services on a decentralized platform operated by a community of users. We discuss Celo's Alliance for Prosperity initiative, and how the many stakeholders across the world work together to create a connected and purposeful experience for everyone. We also delve into trends in the adoption of blockchain technology and examine the Celo community's artful ways around some of the challenges such as volatility and awareness. We conclude the episode with a chat about sustainability and pinpoint a few gaps that fintech entrepreneurs, investors and enthusiasts can bridge to consolidate early gains in achieving long-term prosperity for all.