At Afrobit Kibera, we are all about educating people and giving them knowledge and access to tools that help promote Bitcoin's circular economy.
People in Kibera are living on a dollar a day. They cannot afford to save.
But these guys were actually saving.
It was a really beautiful surprise and a behavior change that we had not envisioned.
It was going to happen as early as we thought.
Hey, everybody. Frank here. Just wanted to say thank you so much to everybody who tuned in to
episode one of the reboot of New Renaissance Capital, or the first episode, our last episode
with Zia Saad, Iranian digital activist, as well as independent Bitcoin educator, and wanted to say
welcome to episode two here. On a quick note about the last episode, Zia and I talked about his
efforts to help get the Iranian people internet. They're currently dealing with an internet blackout
because of the regime right now. So one of the ways you can do that is you can send some sats
via lightning to the following address. It's patchybow79 at walletofsatoshi.com. That's
P-A-T-C-H-Y-B-O-W-7-9 at walletofsatoshi.com. And again, those sats will help to get Iranian
people access to the internet. I want to thank also Zia for coming on the show. It was great to
kick things off again with him, to kick the show back off with him. He's an absolute legend. The
work he does is incredibly important. And if you didn't get a chance to listen to that episode,
please check it out. Also, just wanted to give a little bit of background on today's episode.
I recorded this next episode or this episode that you're listening to now with Rani Maduida,
who is the co-founder of the Afribit Kibera Project.
This is a Bitcoin circular economy within a region of Nairobi, Kenya called Kibera,
which is an informal settlement, sometimes referred to as a slum,
within the city limits of the capital of Kenya, Nairobi.
I've been there myself. There's about 600,000 people living in this area.
I didn't see all of them, but I was in a smaller region of it where the Afribit Project is run out of.
and they're doing truly remarkable work.
I really can't stress that enough.
Ronnie's going to detail that for you in just a moment.
One of the things I wanted to highlight, though,
is a little bit of a backdrop for this conversation
is that this area is very well known
for having tons of different NGOs work in it,
just ridiculous amounts almost.
And it's interesting.
There's so much money going to these NGOs,
but the area doesn't necessarily get any better.
Afribit has been different, though.
It's had a very material impact on the people
with whom Ronnie and the team there have been working with.
And they've been doing a great job in catalyzing change
within each of the individuals that they're working with.
Just wanted to put that out there.
And also, there were two platforms or apps that were mentioned.
I just wanted to give a little background on them,
as we didn't necessarily define them in great detail on the show.
The first is Machankora,
which is an app that allows people to send Bitcoin without internet reception.
You can just use your phone and text internet.
So you can, I'm sorry, text Bitcoin to one another.
You can use like a non-smartphone, like the old Nokia phones.
You can send Bitcoin over those or over WhatsApp.
Truly remarkable technology.
Definitely go check it out.
That's Machankura.
And then also Fetty.
Fetty is a super app that lets people send e-cash, Bitcoin over Lightning,
lets them engage with Nostr, open source AI, all sorts of really cool stuff.
So check out Fetty as well.
And I'm going to leave at that.
Let's dive into the episode. Before we do, actually, please, if you don't mind, hit the like and subscribe buttons.
We're really trying to make this thing something this time around.
The first time I did the show, it was more of a hobby. This time, we're trying to turn it into something a little bit bigger.
If you could help us out in that process, we'd greatly appreciate it.
And with that, let me turn it over to the conversation.
This is my talk with Ronnie Maduida, co-founder of the Afribit Kibera Project.
Welcome back, everybody, to let's call this episode two of season two of New Renaissance Capital.
I'm here with an incredibly legendary human being, Rani Maduida, one of the organizers and founders of Afribit, which is a circular economy in Kenya, a Bitcoin circular economy in Kenya,
in a particular part of Kenya within Nairobi, within the city limits of the capital,
called Kibera. And the project is called Afripet Kibera. And it's doing amazing work with residents
of Kenya who are in some cases unbanked, often many who are of lower socioeconomic status.
The efforts are also tied to cleaning up the environment in the area. So it's a very holistic
project that's having an incredible impact. I'm going to talk about this a little bit more,
but I want Ronnie to be able to introduce himself here a bit.
So Ronnie, if you don't mind, if you could tell us a bit about yourself
and maybe a bit about the Afrobit project.
Hi, thank you, Frank.
Definitely amazing to connect again.
I am Ronnie Mdarida, a co-founder at Afrobit Kibera.
At Afrobit Kibera, we are all about educating people
and giving them knowledge and access to tools
that help promote Bitcoin circular economy.
Why Kibra?
Kibra is one of the most sidelined or sort of marginalized areas
in terms of financial access.
The traditional banking system doesn't really cater to the needs
of this specific segment.
And our focus has been mainly working with what you'd call,
quote-unquote, the working poor group.
This is the garbage collection and the daily vendors who sell vegetables and everything you'll find on the red sites.
Yeah.
Appreciate that.
So Kibera, to give it a little bit more context, it's the largest informal settlement in Africa.
I don't like this.
Sometimes people call it a slum, but I don't really like the term.
So it's this place that's not really governed by a lot of the formal structures that govern maybe downtown Nairobi, right? There's just not the same amount of garbage collection, for instance, or not the same social services available to many of the residents in Kipira.
I saw it myself. I was there to visit. I met Rani in person at the end of 2024 after the African Bitcoin conference in Kenya that year. And it's a lot of people living without much means. And Bitcoin, amongst other aspects of what Kibara is doing, is helping some of these people there.
So you just mentioned a little bit of the program related to garbage collection and upcycling. Could you touch a little bit about on that and how that's connected to Bitcoin to start?
Great, yeah. So what we are trying to do, and we are still very early on, it is basically to use Bitcoin as a tool of empowerment. But what we are doing is community building and community empowerment.
We are not focusing on Bitcoin, just Bitcoin, but Bitcoin can be a powerful tool for this working group.
And like you touched, the waste management group, this is one of the pioneer groups that we started with.
And it entails everyone.
This is guys who have some decent education, guys who have no education at all.
And these are guys who would still do their garbage collection efforts, even without Bitcoin anyways.
So they're already organized.
This is something they do, either to make a small living out of it, but also to sort of take care of their own environment.
So on talking with them, we figured out this was one of the key entry points, you know, that we could sort of utilize.
and we started by incentivizing these guys who,
they still do their garbage collection anyways,
but when they did the garbage collection,
we would incentivize them with some sats.
And we picked it from there, but then we had a good challenge
and this is a few guys who we had known earlier,
we could call them like the local whales.
they would come up and just mop up like all the Bitcoin that these guys were paid out to.
So it was a good challenge because we saw the gaps that were existent. So we moved on to
what we would call incentivized learning. Most of these guys do not really have time like you
know to attend classes and there was already perception like Bitcoin is this, Bitcoin is a
scam that was really, really grounded in the community.
And we had other previous negative incidents that had happened in the community.
So it was quite a bit of a hard sell.
But yeah, we took it as a challenge and we decided to do incentivized learning where
we were doing now Bitcoin sessions.
We partnered with the core, the Adobe tab servers.
and for every, we decided to do 15 mandatory
for every person who was in the garbage collection.
So these were like five sessions that we did.
So we told them, look, on the third session,
you will get some certs just for attending.
We're going to give you some certs for attending.
And they were like, wow, okay, sounds cool, good idea.
But by that third session, a lot of these guys, there was a lot of talk now in the community about Bitcoin, about Bitcoin.
And they were sort of now becoming like so, you know, into it.
And it kind of had a life of its own, you know, from there.
By the time we were finishing the third session, this was the working group that was most Bitcoinized in this community.
and they had so many ideas that they were generating themselves
and there was a lot of peer-to-peer learning now that was sort of happening.
It had another beautiful challenge in a sense that the cohorts that were doing this
were mainly male-dominated, so the ladies felt kind of like left out
and the ladies came up with the idea of upcycling.
They were like, hey, look, we can't go into the garbage trains,
but we could repurpose some old garments.
How about if we buy them from the women
and we pay the women in sorts
and we could create deckers.
So a few women there had some skills
on doing deckers from these upcycled materials.
Could I just ask you a question?
That word you're saying,
I don't fully understand how you're saying it.
I apologize.
I think it might just be a little bit of your accent.
D-E-C-K-E-R-S, deckers?
yes decas yeah like um you know repurposed mats they would use mats
decorations it's decorations okay yeah decorations yeah it's decorations that they would make now from
these uh uh old garments which would otherwise also be ending in the uh in the landfills they
We started repurposing bottles to create also some decorations and all that.
And with this, they are able now to sell these actually and earn an income.
And also they are able also like, you know, to convert, you know, a portion of their income now into Bitcoin.
So that is how we ended up with the upcycling and the waste management effort.
And these are the guys who actually helped us also recruit the merchants.
because we asked them one question like,
if you had these certs, where would you spend them?
If it was money, because it is money, yes, we know,
but this is money, so you want to get value out of it.
Where would you take these certs?
And the guys were like, okay, washrooms,
we would need to go to be able to pay for the washrooms
because in Kibra we have communal washrooms
and you have to pay to use these washrooms?
I'm going to clarify for people if you don't mind.
So most people in the facilities in which they're living,
the homes in which they live,
which are oftentimes not formal structures, if you will,
they don't have a washroom within that structure.
They go to a more of a communal place to shower, to bathe.
Yes, absolutely, 100%.
100%, yeah.
So we have communal showers here whereby people can go to the bathroom there
and they do their showers and everything else.
So that was one of the points.
The other point was corner shops.
The other point was entertainment spots where they could go and watch their games.
Like Premier League is big here, La Liga, soccer basically.
so they could use sats to pay and watch for those games.
So our attention now turned towards the merchant.
And you find the merchants who are much older
than most of the guys we were dealing with who were young.
So they were even more skeptical, you know, of accepting Bitcoin.
Yes, accepting Bitcoin.
So we had now to do what we call like one-on-one sessions.
so what we did was basically like I opened up my personal home for most of these guys.
They could come, we have a cup of coffee, we have a cup of tea, we have lunch, we chat,
we find where their fears are coming from and you know just no pressure, just addressing those as
you go. If you have an event you invite one, you tag along with them so it was a slow process which
took a lot of time and building trust even though it was there,
but this was a whole new initiative where now money was involved directly.
And eventually some of them started accepting.
I know early on there were some young people, businesses,
who were already doing this,
but some of the key services were mainly owned by slightly older people.
And it took time to onboard them, showing them trust.
even in some cases where we had to sort of like put a fiat sort of like you know deposit to these
people and to assure them like look if you lose money here is maybe like 50 dollars for you to
recoup from this we just want you to see the process so that is how we kind of built now the
process now with the merchants and then the other angle we use now was encouraging the merchants to
buy also from other merchants, but also to save. It was really hard to get these people to save in
Bitcoin before actually seeing like, you know, they could use this as a means of exchange.
But with education, as more people got to learn about Bitcoin, the education,
transacting with it, the behavior patterns were changing. So we started seeing now there was a
slow, you know, there was a
slow use. People were not using
their Bitcoin as much. So we were like,
hmm, maybe these guys are going to
Tando, they're turning it into Fiat.
Can I stop for there just for one sec? So Tando,
for people who don't know, I'm just going to give a shout
out to the team, Sabina and
Jason. So Tando is an app that I
used while I was in Kenya where
you could pay from your Lightning wallet and then
via an API it gets converted
into a payment over the
M-Pesa network, which is the digital mobile money network in Kenya. So just to clarify for those who
might not be familiar, definitely check out Tondo. Shout out to Tondo. It makes it easy
for those who don't have maybe a national ID, which we'll get to in a second, or who don't have
a mobile money account. Like myself, when I was in Kenya, I can't become a part of the M-Pesa
network because I'm not a Kenyan citizen and I don't have a national ID, but I could still make
payments over it via my lightning wallet which was very cool i don't mean to interrupt you rani
i just wanted to clarify for the audience yeah sure it's an amazing tool for sure especially
for onboarding people so it has been very powerful like you know in uh uh sort of like
orange peep and peeling people and showing them like hey look this is real money anyway and uh
it was interesting to have just to build on top to have jason and sabina in one of the sessions
and after these guys had sort of like you know gotten some educations they are like hey tando
guys where's my money you guys have my money so that was really interesting but we had brought them
in to come and show people like hey guys look you're building your community here if you are
within the ecosystem please don't use tando just do peer-to-peer but if you want yeah right
Absolutely. So that we can keep this value, you know, within this community and grow it here. Yeah.
I love that. And you said that I did I interrupted you and I apologize again, but you said that you saw behaviors changing. People weren't spending as much. Was it that they were starting to save a little bit more? Maybe they didn't want to spend as frivolously or on certain things because they were realizing, OK, this thing increases in value over time. Was that part of the what was causing behaviors to change?
Yes, that was part of what was causing behavior to change.
And it was a surprise also to us and myself personally,
because the notion we had was,
and I think this is from just the mob mentality.
People in Kibirah are living on a dollar a day.
They cannot afford to save.
But these guys were actually saving.
And this could be proven because we have a community WhatsApp group
where we can do peer-to-peer.
Guys can say like, hey, who is offloading some certs?
And guys would sell the certs to each other.
We are sort of like the second layer, Mitch, I and some other guys, whereby if they don't get to buy from anyone, they could come now to us.
So we could hear that, see that behavior pattern a lot.
And then with the new tools that came in like Bitika and Minmo, which are tools now for buying Bitcoin locally, we saw a huge surge in numbers.
And this is just the feedback from the guys themselves who are telling us like, wow, your community is really buying Bitcoin.
Now, when someone is buying Bitcoin, for sure you do know, like, you know, they're not just buying it to spend, but they are buying it like, you know, to save or something like that.
It was a really beautiful surprise and a behavior change that we had not envisioned.
It was going to happen as, you know, as early as we thought.
Amazing.
and it's a testament to the work that you and the likes of Mitch who you just mentioned are doing
and Sarah a bunch of people who I met while I was there so let's actually rewind a little bit
and maybe go to the foundation of Kibara of what you're doing with Afribit the work that you had
been doing in Kibara before this and the people who are involved aside from yourself in founding
this project?
Yeah.
So I started engaging in Kibra as a very young man I slightly older now so I had a lot of friends there And we had set up a lot of groups
This was mainly after my stay in Canada.
When I came back, I was really motivated to do something grassroots.
And for me, it was two fronts.
My village where I was born and the informal settlement where I had a lot of friends.
So in Kibra, we started with reform programs.
And most of these guys were actually criminals.
And there's even a group called Reform Youth Group, which is led by Moha and some amazing young guys who had serious behavior change.
and it has turned around a lot of lives.
And for me, these are guys we came back and started working with
and we were working with what we had.
We were not structured to apply for any funding.
We were not compliant.
This was way before Bitcoin, you know.
So we were just doing this.
Can I ask what year just so that the audience,
maybe just to give some content?
From 2010 onwards, yeah.
From 2010 onwards.
So we were running volunteer programs.
We had initiated.
There was a lot of interest and curiosity for most visitors who wanted to, you know, come to see Kibera.
We looked at it differently.
Some people would look at it like, you know, it's exploiting the poor people.
But we were like, OK, what value can it bring to the community?
So for some of these guys who had gone through the behavior change program and had structured themselves into what we call community-based organizations, which most of these waste managements are also built on, we started what you would call like tourism.
But this was more of experience learning for people who are of curious minds.
So you would come visit the slum, but there were four different stops whereby you would go.
You would visit a home just to learn how people live.
You would visit a group that is maybe creating something like the Bonds Group who are doing recycling and making some amazing jewelry.
Then you would visit a school.
This is to give you an opportunity maybe to support school.
And then now you would visit a women group, which was also doing something.
because we couldn't take all these different groups to the visitors
who had already been told Kibra is dangerous,
they can't do this, they can't do that.
So it's an idea that we came up with the young people
and we started some of those projects,
which had a huge impact both in personal lives of these guys.
That is, I'm talking about Explore Kibira,
Kevin's Kibira Slam Tours,
the largest walking slam tour in Kibira,
by Raleigh and the likes. And it employed a lot of young people who would offer guided tours,
to people who are curious, you know, to learn, to people who are coming to do research,
and also to volunteers, people who felt like maybe, okay, I want to come teach or maybe help
a youth group in some skills development or learning. So that is how we looked at it. But
it had a very good impact in one of these areas.
The other area that we were involved was building sustainable programs
that were really grounded, like, you know, in the community.
And this was like, let's say a space would be reclaimed,
and this place, once it's reclaimed from trash, would set up maybe a greenhouse.
This was just to show people, like, you know, look,
these places you are trashing and you are seeing is full of waste can actually be a productive area.
So for us, it was more of like, you know, a different mindset and alternative thinking.
And the other initiative we focused on, there was a lot of people in Kibra who are really, really smart,
but then they did not have an opportunity to advance their education or maybe even go to secondary schools and things like that.
So we started doing scholarships.
And this is where Sarah and her friend from Australia started the Kickstart Initiative.
To date, they have done over 160 kids all the way through, like, you know, to the university.
They provide school fees.
They provide pocket money.
And they provide mentorship to these kids.
And right now, we are, I think, at the second cycle of some of these guys who are working.
And they are back now empowering their community.
But all these efforts have to be accompanied by some sort of mentoring because there's that attitude of, look, if I leave the slums, I don't want to come back here.
So in that community building sense, you have to create also like an Ubuntu sort of system whereby when someone succeeds, they are able to help their families or help their friends, you know, to move up the ladder as well.
Could you explain, if you don't mind, I mean, in so many words, you did begin to explain it.
Just technically, what is the Ubuntu system?
So this idea that if you succeed on a certain level that you help others do the same?
Yes.
So this is what it is like, you know, in practicality.
What we are looking at is COVA is supporting a kid in Kibra, you know, through their high school education.
So what we were looking into is like how do we 10x your impact?
with 10x your impact only if we can add value to this person who is being sponsored it's not
just about sponsoring sending the money and saying hey look you have sponsorship here
but it's much more than that it's much more in a sense like you have to mentor these people
so that you can have a wholesome person at the end of the day,
whereby as they finish their studies,
they are not only looking of leaving the community.
It's very much like Bitcoin, if we bring it right now,
where we want to hold it into the community to build value.
Yes, we are not holding you to live in Kibra,
but we are asking you and we are instilling in you values
whereby as you succeed, pull other person with you also ahead.
And we are seeing this is working from the very, very pioneer days that we did.
And we hope we can apply this with Bitcoin as well.
I appreciate the description of Ubuntu.
And I think that it speaks to this idea that the problems that you're trying to solve in
Kibara, you're trying to solve in a very holistic way.
You're not looking at one thing and saying, OK, this person doesn't have this.
They don't have the financial means.
There's a lot of they don't have access to certain things. They don't have emotional support.
There's a lot of things that go into this. And even the way that you described inviting people to your house, you know, the fiat down payment saying like, if this Bitcoin thing fails, we'll give you this $50 back.
All those little things add up because if you just say, hey, Bitcoin is great and people don't really have an understanding of it.
Maybe I don't know the price in fiat terms drops and then they forget about it or they don't use it and then they forget about it.
There has to be some sort of sustained effort and not only around Bitcoin, but with any human being.
They need support. They need people behind them, pushing them to not pushing them, but, you know, just just there to support them.
And I think that that's a big part of the work, not only that you're doing now with Afribit, but that you have been doing since, I guess, pre 2010.
But the one thing more specifically to Bitcoin, I wanted the audience to kind of understand this, because there is the narrative in Bitcoin that it's banking the unbanked.
people who don't have access to traditional banking or financial structures.
And in the case of, let's say you're a refugee living in this area of Kenya in Kibura,
from my understanding, you're not allowed to have a national ID.
And without a national ID, you cannot create an M-Pesa account.
So you really can't be a part of this digital economy,
this digital payment network that most people use in Kenya.
So Bitcoin actually does fill this gap of giving people a digital money to use
when the traditional system does not provide that for them.
Do I have that clear?
I just want to make sure I'm getting that correct.
Yes, absolutely.
Though the numbers are not that high right now,
but when we were starting,
I remember there was a guy who was running a barbershop
and this guy was from Congo, you know,
and he's still our barbers today,
Meeches and all those guys use him.
And for him, like when he learned about Bitcoin,
He was so passionate about it because a lot of the guys, you know, they would stay under the radar.
Under the radar in a sense that they don't want to attract any attention.
But he was like, hey, I didn't know I could use this.
And he could apply, you know, like even with the Tando and all these other platforms.
So it was a game changer for him in a sense that he was looking at it like, you know, he could receive money.
and he could also like, you know, send money back home
in terms of like remittances.
But the beauty of it was he was willing like, you know,
to bring a few of his friends to the Bitcoin education classes
and see how that could cater to this specific cohort of people.
And it's not only that.
there are other guys who losing identity cards in Kibla is very normal because a lot of those guys
they are in and out in and out and I would point to a specific group which we actually onboarded
way later it's called the Golden Hat Youth Group these guys were already doing their garbage
collection they went under just like any other groups that would stop when maybe some members
move on with their things and stuff.
And what happened to this group was they had saved some of their money in a bank.
But then they were dormant for quite some time and their account was re-activated.
Then someone came and said like, hey, look, if you guys organize yourself, we can give
you some funding.
And that is why you find so many groups in Kibira have bank accounts.
it's because people like me and you would go and say like look if you guys organize yourself
make a group create a group we will give you some funding what you need is a bank account
this and that so they would do everything to get a bank account but what does that entangue it
charges them fees recurring fees which they can't really keep up with so that's why the accounts
run dormant. Anyway, back to the Golden Heart group, these guys were dormant for some time.
And what happened is they wanted now to come back again to business and they were told,
okay, you need to reactivate your group. But so much had happened in a sense that
the secretary, the guy who was holding the CBO, what we call the Community-Based Organization
certificate his house had burned in fires which most of the time also like happened
and they were being requested for this particular certificate to go and reactivate the account
so in they lost their money because the process of getting another certificate
was way more tedious than actually you know like opening another probably bank account
so they lost that 4,000 so for them they were like for us bitcoin is a plug because it's
permissionless we don't need anyone's permission like you know to save our money we can save our
money in multi in clan or you know in multi-spend and be accountable and with our own selves and
they are doing that to date they are doing that to date because in all the scenarios all the people
who have told them open a bank account, they have never, ever come back, like, you know, to fund them
or anything like that. So it's been a leakage of value, like, over time for the minimal resources,
like, you know, that are the whole. But so that is another angle of documentation. If you're talking
about some of these guys' documentation, apart from the immigrants, which are scattered around
the Kibra area. The area we are working in, yes, there are some, but a few. But there's a fair
number of other groups which are also disenfranchised because they don't meet what you
would call the standards or the threshold, you know, like to hold a bank account.
Understood. Appreciate that. So yeah, I just wanted to highlight that one particular thing
that Bitcoin very specifically does solve.
Another thing to highlight,
and we've touched on this a little bit,
but to maybe go into greater detail,
Afrobit has what's called a seven pillar plan.
So there's just many pillars to sort of helping people
in the community to achieve success and to be sovereign
and just, you know, obviously just get to a better,
have a better lot in life.
What's some of the other work
that you're doing in the community?
I know some of it hasn't yet,
The whole plan has not been put into motion yet, but what have you gotten started with and what do you plan to also do in the community outside of even Bitcoin?
So something that we are working on right now
and we see as a priority
is what we are calling like a business accelerator.
And with the help of a few guys,
and a shout out also, of course, to Robert Kirubi,
has been very instrumental after his retirement
and he's helping us build some of this initiative.
Robert Karine.
Yeah, you find there's a lot of leakage
in these communities.
So I'll give you an example for the Boda Boda guys.
These Boda Boda guys, motorbike riders,
these are the guys who would carry us from Point A.
Those are very common in Africa and very common in Kenya.
So one of the things that was happening was these riders,
they do peer-to-peer education.
just I have a bike I teach Kova how to ride he starts riding he starts getting a few rides here
and there to earn some few money but we knew that was dangerous and that was not good so what we
started doing was we sat with these guys and asked them like hey look how can we make this
better for you guys it's already yes your work that you're doing it's putting bread and butter
in your table, but how are we going to improve it? First of all, for you to be able to be more
effective, you need to be compliant. So how do you help them get maybe like a driving license
or a riding license? And also to be able to get like something simple as insurance.
Because when they are riding that motorbike without insurance, without, you know, a license,
their life is just a few inches away, you know, the risk and the risk of finding or building or
finding resources is way too high. So they said, like, look, if you give us money, we are not going
to lie. We will use it for other expenses, you know, and we will put it into our daily needs.
so this is the deal if you can pay for us or find your friends who can pay for us
and pay for our driving so that we get the licenses and pay for our insurances so if
anything happens to us or our bikes there's some sort of compensation we are eager and open to have
an arrangement you know that will work for all of us and we were like what kind of arrangement would
work and they were like what we do right now we operate with shylocks and the fees are very
exorbitant so there's a lot of experts what those are shylocks yeah the looks are people who you
will get money from but the interest rates are like maybe 300 percent okay got it so it's it's
crazy so we piloted with uh 10 guys as of today where we did find just some local people hey help
these people. This is their need. And they would pay for these riders, their licenses. And then
these guys would pay back, you know, per week, but they would pay back in Bitcoin. Yeah, they will pay
a standard fixed amount in fiat, but then they are paying back in Bitcoin. So these are people who are
holding on their resources and they're holding on long term, but they are willing to help people,
but not just give out money for free.
So let's say I have 10,000 that is sitting somewhere.
I could say like, hey, look, okay,
I can pay 2,000 shillings for your license.
Give me back in Bitcoin.
Every week, you can give me an equivalent
of 500 Kenya shillings.
But in Bitcoin, you have to change it into Bitcoin
and send me into Bitcoin.
But that has a double impact.
these guys are starting to see like, hmm, why am I paying Roni back in Bitcoin and not in Kenya
Shilling? So they're starting to see the value in that. And that's automatically also like, you know,
gets their mind thinking like, okay, I want to put my savings also like, you know, in Bitcoin.
So that has been working really well. The other issue that we are moving into,
and this is with the help of Robert, is we have structured these groups
where we have these groups are utilizing now like the clan,
the multi-spend feature in Fedi.
And how we want to do this is, let's say like the garbage collection group.
These guys do save anyways.
They make sure once they collect garbage, they save some of their money.
Initially, they were saving in fiat,
But now they save a portion of their money also like in sands.
So we are trying to give them some seed capital whereby they can build collateral and they are able to borrow eventually, you know, against their Bitcoin.
because what is happening with the reliance on predatory loans
that are existing right now,
there is a lot of value that is leaking outside the community
and this value could actually be converted into Bitcoin
and our future would have been much, much, much brighter.
Yes, we know it will be brighter,
but we want to minimize all the leakages.
So this is where the holistic approach now comes in.
How do you deal with those issues in the business accelerator How do you deal with a woman maybe who is going through some emotional turmoil So we have people we partner with people who are able to come and do like mental health workshops
We have the BitServors and some other organizations who are coming in to do like,
to come and do like savings, financial literacy.
not just teaching about Bitcoin, but just helping them to learn about financial literacy.
Like, you know what it means.
Like, all those components add into the, like, you know, building of the community.
How do we structure programs whereby you have more groups like Sarah
who are coming to support with the education effort?
This puts less pressure on the resources for the parents.
and again, they are able to save a portion
or some bit of their money into Bitcoin.
So you don't run with Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin,
but you hide it and you use it as an engine
and a tool that will empower them over time.
And this is what we are trying to do in a nutshell.
It's a lot to process, but step by step,
there's no pressure.
We are enjoying the journey and we are onboarding more
and more resourceful people who are really adding the value.
And the plan is to scale the impact eventually,
have something that is sustainable, scalable,
and it's not an engine to consume,
but an engine that will churn productivity.
Yep. Yep. Understood.
I want to contextualize the depth of the impact that you've had.
I think it was earlier last year, 2025, the BBC, the British Broadcasting, forgetting what the C stands for, Commission Network, whatever it is, they came to Kibira.
They sent their correspondent based in Nairobi to Kibira.
He had heard about what was happening there and went there.
And now the BBC, for all those who are unaware, they do not tend to publish positive things about Bitcoin.
That's not how the BBC works.
They tend to be very antagonistic towards Bitcoin.
And in this five-minute segment in which Ronnie was featured, they were very much like, look, this is genuinely solving problems.
At the end, of course, they had some economist on who was like, but Bitcoin is volatile.
They had to add something that was sort of like half negative.
But the impact, it made me happy to see that even an organization that tends to write anything possible, anything they can that's negative about Bitcoin, they do it.
But they saw what was happening on the ground and they did report on it in, I think, a very appropriate way.
I don't want to say positive.
I say appropriate because it's very, very positive what's happening on the ground.
So they sort of captured that.
I wanted to get a little behind the scenes on that though when that reporter came and that
corresponding came what were those interactions like was he skeptical at first or was he excited
about it what was the process of teaching him about what you were doing like so it was really
interesting because we are not very big on interviews like I had shared with you we really
enjoyed like you know working behind the scenes and all this Afribeat Kibera initiative actually
you are the source who kind of, you know,
gave us a lot of attention after you did the Forbes article.
And so for the people, let me just clarify.
Yeah. For people, after, after I visited in 2024, early 2025,
I wrote a piece for Forbes on what I saw after interviewing Ronnie and some
other people involved and, and, and seeing it with my own two eyes,
I wrote a piece and I think Ronnie, you mentioned,
you sent me an email saying, you know, there's we're getting more attention because of this.
And I could even see I think it's the most read piece I've ever written for Forbes.
So I was happy to see that it brought that sort of attention.
I was always I'm always a little bit nervous because sometimes too much attention in some ways can be a bad thing.
But I think it seems to have been a good thing overall.
It's brought positive attention to the project, it seems like.
Yes, absolutely. It brought a lot of attention.
But we were trying to do a lot of things like, you know, behind the scenes.
And for us, it was more of addressing the issues that we had at hand and using Bitcoin as a tool.
That was our main focus.
So back to BBC, I think Mike had almost like three interactions because we were not very keen on BBC.
We didn't know like, you know, it was a big deal or anything like that.
And I remember the first meeting is not even available.
So I told him like, hey, look, Mitch is available and Sarah.
so you can go maybe talk to them.
I won't be around.
And he was like, hey, look, I want to come see you first.
So he's a very nice gentleman.
He came.
He actually visited me at the house, you know.
And he came and you are like, okay,
the challenge we have is a lot of people want to write about Bitcoin,
but then they really don't understand what is really happening.
So he came back to the site again.
He saw some of the things.
He met some of the members of the community on what was happening.
We invited him to one of the Bitcoin and conferences that was happening.
And he showed up and he even made contacts there.
So we literally plugged him in, got him a wallet and sent him some resources to keep studying.
And we were like, we can also link you up with Kova and you can learn more about contributing.
but ever since we've gotten a lot of journalists who have come and we were like okay you guys need
to get a one-on-one class you know on some of these things because you would have a very good
impact if you can know how to message this it's not just about bitcoin it's a tool and they come
back and they live with stories and they're like okay we want to come back so there was a lot of
back and forth with Mike.
And we did it, I think, after the fourth session.
And we were under no pressure.
And we have really tried to run away from interviews and publicity.
But it kind of keeps catching up.
Because even when, for example, there was a time some AP guys were coming
and I was like, Mitch, you need to do these interviews.
only to see me showing up with those guys at home.
And I was like, dude, what's happening?
And we were like, no.
And he was like, no.
So our home also was turned sort of like, you know, into a studio.
Like, you know, the guys would come, set up their cameras,
and oh, we are coming to talk to you as an expert.
And we were like, no, no, no, no, I'm not an expert.
If you're coming to talk to me as Roni, that's fine.
But I'm not an expert in those issues.
So we've had a lot of that, but a lot of them have been pleasant.
We take our time.
We are not very desperate about media and attention.
So we're just trying to build a community and try and do the little that we can do.
I think you underestimate, you know, not only your own power and how much of it, you know,
But the impact that you've had and the impact that the organization is having and for anyone who is listening to this that might eventually one day travel to Kenya to Nairobi, I highly recommend that you visit to see it for yourself because there are very few people out there who are doing this work that Ronnie's doing.
And in a second, I want to talk about some of the challenges because you make it seem very easy, though I know it is also very challenging on many levels.
but this whole promise of Bitcoin was that at first it would be adopted by people who need it
most and that's people who can't pay these bank account fees, that's people who have been
historically financially disenfranchised and again I just want to reiterate that adoption
in these places, Bitcoin itself doesn't flow into their view and then magically sort of teach them
how to use it. It takes people like Ronnie who are dedicated and to also not only, again, teach
them about this, but to do things like bring in mental health professionals to deal with people
who are struggling with other things. The approach has to be holistic. And the thing with when you're
meeting a need, when you're meeting needs for people where needs are very great, challenges can
be overwhelming. Sometimes there's probably always a lack of resources. I don't want to say always a
lack. That sounds like that. But there's, I would imagine you could always, there's more help you
could, that would be, it would be beneficial to help what you're doing. So I'm curious to hear,
you know, you make all this sound easy. You're incredibly humble. You're an incredibly good
natured human being, but day in, day out, you know, a lot of what you're doing, there's a lot
of weight to it. There's a lot, it's a lot to carry sometimes for people. And just simply being
there for people emotionally in and of itself can be really trying. And then the other thing that
people often don't discuss with Bitcoin, you know, in terms of the challenges is that you're talking
about one of the most sensitive topics in the world, money, right? You're talking about people's
money, you know, and whether or not that money retains value and provides them some sort of hope
for the future, right? There's so much that goes into that. So even in moments like this, we've
seen Bitcoin's price, at least in US dollars, drop almost 50% from its recent highs. You know,
everybody maybe who over the last two years before that were watching it go up now they maybe watch
it go down a little bit in fiat terms and they say hey ronnie like what do you what'd you get me
into here what's happening i don't know if they're saying that or not i'm sure you teach them about
the volatility but but there are many challenges that come with this and oftentimes the hardest
part is that it's kind of thanked thankless when everything is going well people say thank you but
you know people but then also when things don't go well they're like hey hey what happened what
happened and then you are the bad guy all of a sudden. It's a really difficult role to play.
And I'm not saying I'm not I don't want to I'm not putting anyone in the community down. I'm not
saying they do that. But judging by the way you're laughing, I'm sure you've experienced some of this.
So I want you to maybe talk a little bit about, if you don't mind, some of the challenges and then
how you address them, because ideally, some people listening to this might be thinking about how they
can have a bit more of a community impact. And I would say that before you put yourself in that
role, you do need to, I'm not saying it should scare you, but you should become aware of the
gravity of the task that you're taking on. So if you could just speak to the challenges a little
bit, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for your kind words. And yeah,
I was just laughing because when the graph was going down, I think when we came back to
Cape Town and
you know we were
walking around with
the merchants just
being present there and guys were like
well okay what is happening
like okay do you know the CEO
of Bitcoin probably
we could have a chat but you know
thanks to some tools and
the education efforts that
we have been able
like you know to do and
again I would really emphasize this
one of the key ingredients that helps, like, you know, Bitcoin education is really, really important
in this aspect. And I'm talking about physical, not just a session that you would do and you close
chapter, say you had 30 or 40 people. No. Education in a sense that you can sit with someone
who doesn't get it, don't give up, sit back with them again.
I used to get a lot of those requests, like, you know,
can I come see you, you know?
So time was actually one of the greatest things I think I gave
because we needed to build trust.
And even they would not trust maybe their own peers
who had graduated to become, you know, like Bitcoin educators,
but they just wanted to get that validation and go like,
okay, am I hearing the right thing?
Am I being referred to the right information?
So time constraint was, I think, one of those key challenges.
There are times I would sit at home and I could spend like maybe two days,
you know, not two days, but the whole day with two people
because they've gotten sucked in, but they want to understand.
They want to talk. And you'd go like, OK, but I know I might not be able to find you, you know.
So that was another issue. But education played a really, really critical role.
And one of the approaches that we used was. Look at the motor riders sector, who is the loudest guy in this sector?
Like who is the bishop in this sector and get that guy, build a relationship with him if you don't have one.
turn him into this bishop now who is like so you know like uh influential yes influential
bitcoin knowledge you pour all that bitcoin knowledge because there's a way he relates to
these guys that you can't relate with these guys so that was one of the approaches we use same with
the west management groups just to build on top of the education classes that we had we would have
sessions with these key people. If it is Steph, you know, or Mercy from the Tumayini group,
get her to understand and be open to her so that she can come in with all her fears, worries,
and stuff. And she has a safe space, you know, like to ask very hard questions.
And some of these questions are like, you know, how do I get to explain to people
that I have onboarded now that Bitcoin is going down.
And it shows you the gaps that are present,
you know, like in the education maybe that we have done.
So we figured out like, okay,
where do we need to put more efforts?
How do we build more nodes or human nodes
for that matter, or ambassadors?
There's a lot of excitement,
but then how do we manage that?
Because you have everyone.
The pressure sometimes is you have everyone now wanting like, hey, these are the car wash guys.
You know what?
We want this session of education.
We want this.
And you have to plan that.
And sometimes you are limited on the sources because maybe you depend on Trezor.
But they have organized themselves already into a group.
So you need a few sets to go and onboard them, show them this is how it works.
So you might be pushing that, but then it becomes a constant pressure.
There are times I wake up and I have like 20 missed calls from one guy, you know.
But it's all good calls.
He's like, look, we want to have this session.
We want to have this session.
You know, those are things like, you know, that happen.
They are very enthusiastic young people who are building on top.
We have this lady, she's called Susanna.
She's building something called Sats for Safari.
she's so passionate into bitcoin she's not from the immediate village that we are working on
but she's been coming to the village to learn she's been coming to my place to learn
and she's like okay i'm building a website connect me with brindon who is doing gorilla
sets you know connect me with this person who is doing this so there is that energy and then
it scales even across where you will have now like we are having to do like more of a mentorship role
now not just along Kibera but this has broadened now into so many other places in Kenya where
people are looking up to you can you come visit can you come see us so there's that constant
pressure. And then now with
Hermann and
CBAF, for those who don't know,
CBAF is like
Circular Bitcoin African Fund
because we help Hermann with
managing some of those 43
projects across Africa.
Just so people know too, Hermann is
the founder of the Bitcoin Akazi program,
one of the people that
runs that program.
Yes. So there are projects that we are
helping that have been supported
by Bitcoin Beach.
sort of peer-to-peer learning, facilitating engagement and all that.
So you find now these roles sort of like scale to the whole continental level.
And that can be really, really like, you know, taxing as well.
And they can take like, you know, a lot of time.
But back to communal challenges, it's mainly issues to deal with.
it was infrastructure where now we are working our biggest issue was internet reliable internet
can I say reliable internet because we have a lot of internet hotspots but reliable affordable
internet that was an issue and even with Manchankura a lot of these guys still need to go
online you know some of those things like we are trying to push like Nostar they need to be online
for them to be able to access those.
So this is an area now we are working with FEDI,
which not only pushes the internet back end,
but also helps to push for adoption in a sense that...
Okay, I just want to clarify.
You just said they're pushing for the internet on the back end.
I don't know that everybody is totally familiar with what you're saying.
Could you explain how FEDI is helping to push for internet?
so satanets is a project by fedi where they're trying to promote internet access to communities
like afribeat kibra circular economy and this internet is actually uh it's it's geared to become
sort of like an asset or an income generating you know infrastructure for the community
for the community as it grows, becomes independent,
and, you know, it builds up.
This is how it's structured.
But the whole system itself, the goal is to push for adoption.
So the more people have to convert their money
to buy internet in SATs, which is more affordable,
the more, again, they are getting these questions,
just like the Boda Boda guys.
Why am I having to change my money from fiat to...
So it's the mindset issue on the back end that FEDE and Satternet is trying to address.
But again, on the communal part, it becomes an income generating project, you know, like for the community.
Because what eventually FEDE does, it hands over the project to the community.
and with more subscriptions that you have,
you are able now to generate maybe a small profit
that will help you run your own programs and things like that.
So it's a very well-thought-out idea
that can help a lot of circular economies
that are growing in Africa because one of the challenges that is existence right now is the sustainability aspect The circular economies right Yes circular economies And they need to rely less you know like on donations and things like that
Yeah. And the other challenge, of course, is the issue to do with equipment. This is in terms of
maybe like the waste management groups. We are looking at adding value to these groups. So how
do we get them maybe a beller or a shredder where they can shred their waste, build their waste,
and sell it to recyclers at a higher value. And what this will mean is they would be generating
more resources and more income for themselves. So there is that challenge of access to equipment
and even simple things as hand cuts where they need to push, you know.
Those are some of the equipment and tools challenges that we are finding,
you know, like maybe not possible.
And the other thing that Blink has really been helping now to sort out this
is helping people behind the scenes.
It's unfortunate sometimes people don't see the people who are doing the hardest work.
They only get to feel their faces like ours,
but we have so many other young builders who are putting in the work
and they are doing a lot to push for Bitcoin adoption.
So what Blink is trying to do is set up a builder's program
whereby such people can be identified
and they are given small stipends that they can use on their own daily needs
so that they are able to meet their daily.
because Bitcoin doesn't pay anyone.
Like us guys, we don't earn salaries.
We don't earn anything.
So it's a movement that we are building.
But there are those guys on the ground there,
the bishops I'm talking about.
They can be more impactful if, let's say,
we can give them, hey, here is $5,000.
This is for your own personal use.
Keep doing what you're doing.
So that's also really going to help adoption.
Then there's also the issue of keeping up now with the education requests that I told you about.
And this would really help if maybe like more partners come on board.
Not necessarily like, you know, with big budgets, but we can make this very organic.
Because right now what we have is we actually have groups.
And like before where we were calling people to come for Bitcoin meetups, now we have organized groups requesting us to go for meetups.
So you want, when you go to these meetups, maybe you have some small sets where you can onboard people, show them how it works and ask them to use them, you know, like around the circular economies.
So those small things would really add value, like, you know, into some of these issues.
And there is still also a challenge of dealing with skeptics.
It's not our problem, but it is a good challenge.
And we love challenges.
in Afibit Kibera, whereby you find a wife is a maximalist,
but you don't want to break anyone's home, you know?
Don't want to break anyone's home.
So how do you access the husband?
Now this is where thinking outside the box comes in.
What does your husband do?
Oh, he does this and this kind of work, okay?
And I've done this with some young girls
because these young guys are very passionate about Bitcoin.
They wanted to learn sessions.
And their dad is like, Bitcoin is a scam.
So I was like, what does your dad do?
My dad is an electrician.
So I started giving him electrical jobs.
And by the fifth session, he was like,
so what is this Bitcoin thing that Frida tells me about?
So it needs patience, but you've got to have to do more of those things.
And once you get one of those guys, then the impact is 10x.
So we've been on a campaign to target.
A target maybe is the wrong word, but to approach the biggest skeptics.
For our own sake, it helps us understand what are their fears, what are their worries.
And that helps us also design the program.
if someone wants to scale we can have a playbook and tell them like hey look this is how you'll go
about this issue so the challenges we are using them as a personal you know tool for improvement
or constantly learning yeah i love that that's amazing i want to quickly just rewind back to
satanet that what feri is doing a little bit could you just talk a little bit technically
about how that works i think this is really interesting i've spoken with obi about it
directly as well but this is this is a very new concept so technically so where is the internet
originally coming from how are people paying for that and then how could you just dive into some of
the details about how it eventually helps the community you gave a little bit of an overview
but i just wanted to try to clarify for listeners so suddenly it is it's coming from starlink
but then there's a backend software and for this software it helps like you know multiple users
access it only via the lightning network and this is in the faddy app for now it's in the faddy app
and they access this by buying you know uh sats so you buy sats in your wallet
and then you are able to activate your Saturn 8 package.
There is a one-day package, 24 hours.
There is a one-week package for seven days.
And how this works is once you pay, your package is activated
and you are able to access it within the locality or the range that the Saturn 8 works.
It's not, you know, out of Kibira or anywhere else.
No, it's specifically like the radius of the circular economy for now.
And it's still very much in the early stages.
So we are learning a lot of things.
Yesterday, we were actually with Obi on the ground, learning about some of the gaps that are existing.
But the whole thing is also envisioned to be an income generator for a circular economy
in a sense that as you gain more users and more people get to start using Saturnet,
Of course, we have to make it reliable. We have to make it fast. We have to make it affordable.
We envision a situation whereby it can sort of become a tool that will also be injecting some money like, you know, for Afribit.
And we don't have to rely on donations or we can rely less on donations and use some of that for our own operational costs and maybe get a few people like the activators or the educators, get some stipends for their efforts and push the movement forward.
So it's something that's going to be very, very sustainable once it rolls out and it works out.
So we have this beautiful challenge of making sure it works and succeeds in Kibra so that it can be scaled into other places.
But it is basically Starlink with a back end of Saturnit whereby it can be broadcasted now to as many users as possible.
who are within the locality, but you only get to access it
if you pay, you know, using SATs.
And it is much cheaper than the other available internet solutions.
And we also want it to be much faster
or the connectivity to be much faster.
And it is not about, like, also the issue of how, you know,
like maybe it will sustain but how the internet will be used because some of the guys right now
are starting to do content creation for their shops like i know one guy called billy who has a store
he's a bitcoiner and he goes on tiktok live and he's using that internet you know like you know
to spread the word and we know the other people who do like remote jobs we are hoping they can
also be able to use that again we want it to add value to the community in a way that it can impact
their lives positively it's not just for scanning and playing with bitcoin no it's much more than
that and that is the whole vision yeah making it success and the basic tool like you know that
people can utilize um yeah again speaks to the holistic nature of this we're trying to empower
people or Afrobit is trying to empower people on many different levels. We talked about challenges,
but before we wrap up here, I was hoping maybe you could highlight a few of what you consider to be
the biggest victories of the organization. I think a lot of times we talk about what's difficult and
what we're trying to do and this and that. And sometimes we don't reflect enough on how much
success we've had in whatever we're doing. So when it comes to what you're most proud of with what
you've accomplished with Afribit, with what the Afribit team has accomplished? What are some of
the first things that come to mind? I think the first thing that comes to mind is the daily stories
that you will meet someone in the streets. And for me, I would just pick this young artist by the
name on Pax. He's the one who did a video, like, you know, educating his peers about the Bitcoin
adoption and stuff. This young man was very curious. He was a big skeptic and he was referred
by his friends to come for one of the treasure academy classes that we had. And that was sort of
like the pill that got him, you know, interested in this. And it's interesting because those treasure
sessions have really had some very magical influence in building a foundation of interest
in the community and people actually like following up Bitcoin journey in their own ways.
So what happened to Pax was he attended these sessions. Then we had one-on-one more sessions
with him. He would come to my place, like five sessions. And he was like, look, I'm going to make
a song that I'm going to use, you know, like to get other young people get interested into Bitcoin
and watch this piece. And he did the song, released it with his local producer. And it was a hit
locally that got so many other young people like, you know, curious. They created their own group.
and he was like, he started educating those guys now
on his own terms, in their own language again,
on how they could apply their knowledge.
And he's very big on saving.
He's those guys who, before he would buy his certs
and even delete his Blink wallet
because he had not gone to the other on-chain wallets
because the fees were very high.
But he was like, look, he would delete his wallet,
but he has his address so he just sends his certs there.
He's looking at saving and he was like,
dude, when I get to your age, I want to retire.
We always say I can't save, I can't save,
but the amount of money I make, even at my age right now,
I can take this as a challenge to discipline myself
and make sure I commit to save.
And he's been very constant on that.
another example is a session we held let's say after six months of whatever was happening in the
community so we had a meetup and we were like hey look if there's anyone here with
who has their wallet and they still have sets worth 500 shillings and above come here we will
doubled and then we had like 30 people you know like standing and the room was had only like 40
people because we knew like uh no maybe these guys are not saving you know something like that
and all these guys were standing up and they are very proudly yes as much as we can say it's a
secret not to show your balance but they were very proud of it like you know so we both manchankura
both you know like blink guys and that was really really like you know uh exciting to see
and the other beautiful moment there are so many i could take many and um is now the other young
guys who sort of started developing tools i'm talking about eddie and another guy called martin
who are looking into making low cost, like, you know, point of sales.
One of the things that we are working on right now with them is
the pool table is very big in Kibra.
And we were like, hey, a lot of guys play pool.
How do we get to build a pool table that guys can pay with lightning invoice?
And they are already working on that, you know.
They've figured everything out.
And the solutions are so local and so grassroots,
and you find there are people who are building on top,
who are building on top.
So our role now comes back now like into guidance
and telling people like, okay, this is fine.
You will learn a few lessons here.
Here is Frank.
He can guide you on writing articles.
Here is, you know, maybe Haman.
He can give you some insights on this and this.
So that networking effect, and it's breaking the barriers also in terms of self-confidence.
And Mitch was telling me he feels very confident now.
He can actually, being in that Bitcoin space has actually helped him as a person to develop, you know, like personally.
And we are getting a lot of that feedback from people who now feel they are more empowered that they have this knowledge.
And there's a lady who is a merchant who was telling me she never knew what money was.
Now she's really understanding money.
So it was interesting because she was like, look, if I hold this hundred shillings in my hand, I cannot see its graph, like, you know, dropping.
I cannot see its graph dropping.
and like Bitcoin where like we are comparing with this.
So for me, that was really interesting
to come from what you would call, you know,
such an ordinary person
and people are not hyped or excited about the graph.
They're not talking about the graph.
They're not talking about charts
or maybe being billionaires and stuff.
They are looking at a rail where like, you know,
It means, oh, Bitcoin, lightning to lightning, zero transaction fees.
For me, it's a win, you know?
Those kind of things are really, really like, you know, what makes us going and inspire us.
And seeing people now build their own other empowerment projects and using Bitcoin as a tool to empower the people.
Yeah.
You have tears in my eyes, Ronnie.
and I have nothing but admiration for what you do.
And it's funny, as I'm listening to this,
I recently stepped down from my job,
what I was doing in the White House,
and I had this feeling of, you know,
I'd be there and I'm giving coverage to this person
that gets all the coverage in the whole world,
Donald Trump, right?
He's constantly on TV and everything else.
And while I'm there in all these moments,
I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like,
this is the last person who needs my attention.
There are so many people out there who have these beautiful stories who are doing amazing work. And just this conversation alone, having it with you reminded me of why I chose to step away from that.
So I want to thank you for the inspiration that you've been, not only to the people in Kibara, but in my life for making me remember why I got into Bitcoin, why Bitcoin is important, and also why Bitcoin itself, by itself, in and of itself, is not the solution, but why it's a catalyst that can change communities if we continue to work together, educate one another, support one another, emotionally support one another.
and what you're doing is something that I hope this conversation between us continues.
I hope to be back to see you in Kibbera, hopefully in the near future.
And yeah, the world, Africa will remember you.
The world will remember you for the work that you've done.
And more than anything, just immediately forget about history books, the people there.
I know you've had a tremendous impact on them and that impact will only ripple and become
exponential over time.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you do.
And thank you for being my second guest here at the reboot of the podcast.
Wow. Thank you so much, Frank, for your kind words.
You do a lot of amazing work.
We are very proud of you and we cannot wait to have you back here again.
It's, you know, platforms like this that will get the message home.
It's platforms like yours and people like you who would give that person who is yearning and eager to learn and travel to our worlds, be able to experience this.
And you having been on the ground and having kept constant touch with us, we truly appreciate that.
And we are super grateful.
And yeah, thank you for the amazing work that you're doing, man.
Thank you.
It means a lot coming from you, Ronnie.
Appreciate it.
We will keep this conversation going to everybody out there listening.
If you're inspired, as Ronnie just said, consider that trip to Kenya.
Consider that trip to Kyivara to see it for yourself.
Thank you, you know, on behalf of the podcast for listening.
And then we will have Ronnie back on hopefully in the near future to get an update on what's happening.
But in the meantime, we'll be back in about a week or so with Umiti Undawar,
who was the first female Bitcoin core contributor
or the first person who identified as a female
or came out as a female.
We'll be talking about Bitcoin and mental health
next time we do this.
But anyway, Ronnie, thank you so much for being on.
And we will talk soon, my friend.
Take it easy, everybody.
Pretty remarkable stuff, no?
As I mentioned at the beginning,
Ronnie is an absolute legend.
The whole team at AfribitKeyBetter,
they're all absolute legends.
And the work that they're doing on the ground there
is truly inspiring.
be sure to go on to socials
I believe they're on Instagram
X Noster go check out
what they're doing go follow
what they're doing
any support you could give them send them a zap
on Noster would sure
help amplify them retweet
all that good stuff make sure to do that
and also if you wouldn't mind please like
and subscribe to the podcast on whatever
platform you're listening or watching on
we would sincerely appreciate it
and we thank you for your time and attention and we'll be back
next week take it easy everybody
Thank you.
Next question for 2019.