Museveni to attend blockchain conference in Kampala

May 2, 2018 in Finance, Financial Services by Editor

May 2, 2018—President Yoweri Museveni and Ameenah Gurib Fakim, the former president of Mauritius, will be guests of honour at the first ever African Blockchain Conference to be held in Kampala between May 23 and 24.

Museveni is expected to address the conference along with Ameenah Gurib Fakim, the former Mauritius president.

“Uganda needs to understand and appreciate the relevancy of the blockchain technology which is already being embraced by the whole world. This conference will be a big opportunity for Uganda to advance this technology,” Kwame Rugunda, the Blockchain Association of Uganda chairman said during a news conference on Monday.

Blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are recorded chronologically and publicly. A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency designed to work as a medium of exchange. It uses cryptography to secure and verify transactions as well as to control the creation of new units of a particular cryptocurrency. Essentially, cryptocurrencies are limited entries in a database that no one can change unless specific conditions are fulfilled.

Under the theme, “The role of blockchain technology in Africa’s transformation’, the conference will be hosted by the Blockchain Association of Uganda with support from the ICT ministry. The conference is also being supported by Stanbic Bank Uganda, Binance Foundation and St. Augustine University

It will be attended by policy makers, academia, entrepreneurs, blockchain enthusiasts and leaders from the financial, health, industrial and other sectors.

Rugunda said the conference will give an opportunity for Ugandans in different sectors to see how they can use blockchain technology for improved service delivery better and also understand the different opportunities that exist with its use.

The permanent secretary in the ICT ministry, Vinent Bagiire said the government is ready to learn and engage in the new technology so that it can use it to advance its economic agenda.

According to the Stanbic Bank Uganda Head of Information Technology, Herbert Olowo, the banking sector is ready to embrace the new technology as it has the potential to improve operational efficiency both in the public and private sectors.

Essentially, any cryptocurrency network is based on the absolute consensus of all the participants regarding the legitimacy of balances and transactions. If nodes of the network disagree on a single balance, the system would basically break. However, there are a lot of rules pre-built and programmed into the network that prevents this from happening.