The World Food Programme in collaboration with Corsali, a machine learning company and Celo, Blockchain firm have launched the first crypto learning Centre in Kenya.
The project connects young people at high risk of hunger to an online micro-work platform enabling them to earn an income from machine learning jobs using cryptocurrency and e-wallets.
“Eighty per cent of participants of this project do not have employment and we are providing these skills to enable them earn a living using cryptocurrency,” Partner, research and Innovation at Celo, Angelo Kalaw said.
The program targets to train 400 people from remote areas by March. So far 200 employed Kenyan youth have been trained to access digital work from global platforms on their smartphones.
Using the app and the integrated digital wallet, the pilot participants can get paid instantly through the Celo dollars, which is a global stable coin pegged to the US dollar and they can cash out anytime to M-Pesa.
“As the world is undergoing a massive shift towards remote working in times of COVID-19, we aim to level the playing field for marginalised youth in the labour market,” Global Project Lead, WFP Innovation Accelerator, Elisa Molena said.
The country is launching the first crypto school days after Central Bank of Kenya joined other seven countries in Africa to research on the benefits of digital currency in promoting payments efficiency.
Last year, CBK governor Patrick Njoroge bowed to pressure of the fast-changing global financial market, announcing plans to enter into discussions with other global central banks on the possibilities of entering the digital currency space.
''We are already feeling left out and need to create our own space,” Njoroge said.
He said while Kenya has various transaction channels, CBK is keenly watching the niche that cryptocurrencies are trying to play in.
He, however, warned that these must be well regulated to address concerns such as money laundering and financing of illicit activities.
Recently, Nigeria’s Central Bank piloted the first digital currency after being in the development phase for the last three years.
It joins 14 other countries that are in the pilot stages with their own central bank digital currencies including Sweden and South Korea.
However, El Salvador's historic adoption of bitcoin as legal tender was marred by teething problems, as angry protests by mistrustful citizens, technological glitches and a dip in the cryptocurrency clouded the rollout.
This was after Bitcoin crashed to a near historic low days after the country adopted the digital currency.
Money experts termed the move as folly, as such currencies are not designed to fulfil any of the classic functions of money – a unit of account, store of value, or means of payment – because their prices are extraordinarily volatile.
