Bantu Accra Launch — Speech by Abubakar Suleiman (CEO Sterling Bank)

‘Knowledge is power’ — Emeka Okoye, a passionate technologist and a friend of mine.

And spectators don’t win tournaments.

The world is built on our collective biases. Architecture carries the biases of the builders, so does technology. There’s nothing like a global platform, only local platforms with global dominance.

Without African tech stacks, there’s little room for honest innovation and no chance localising the power of technology. Let’s build with African biases.

The power of tech is best expressed by the size and passion of the tech ecosystem. Bantu is an African tech ecosystem, possibly the first non commercial attempt at unifying the tech generation on our continent.

Bantu is not just about the XBN, it is about the culture of building for our selves, or believing in ourselves, of supporting one another across generations and across national borders.

And Bantu Blockchain Foundation is the refinery, XBN the fuel. The real progress happens when you use it to power your vehicles.

Blockchain is just another evolution in technology but it is highly suitable for solving the peculiar challenges of unifying a continent that was meticulously torn apart. Blockchain is about trust, and the more trust we can embed in our daily engagement as Africans, the faster we will reintegrate our economies, reconnect our people, unify our future.

Let this be the beginning of a true African Renaissance that will transcend literature, culture, tourism and the economy and rise into the metaverse.

Whatever the future brings, let Africa be well represented. Let the government emboldened the formal economy using the ACFTA and the PAPSS, Bantu will connect the teaming youth with XBN and Timbuktu.

Let the fireworks begin, we are all in.

Abubakar Suleiman