magma is a peer-to-peer coordination point for founders building Africa’s economy and finance onchain.

It's a two week residency for 25 builders working across the African continent, where we also have 10 global researchers, infrastructure builders, and leaders from the Ethereum ecosystem joining.

Why does magma exist?

• The African builder community is very fragmented (54 countries, and long distances between them). If we are building decentralized applications for the large African user bases, it makes more sense to build interoperable and modular tools instead of monolithic projects. So we need stronger coordination amongst ourselves. And while several builders are in shared TG groups, IRL gatherings are critical for strong coordination and trust.
• There is a huge disconnect between African ecosystems and the global Ethereum world. No major global Ethereum conference has taken place in Africa recently (yet!), so bringing builders and researchers from overseas to the continent is going to be critical.magma is here to build community, and create the foundations for peer to peer support.

Structure of the 2 weeks:

• Peer to peer learning, coordination, workshopping individual projects, open space.
• Structured workshops and office hours by global builders on ZK, account abstraction, smart contracts, security, tokenomics, governance and DAOs, product building, etc. More 1:1s than 1:many.
• Space and time for builders to build, hack, do heads down work.
• Community and trust building activities, open sharing circles, fireside chats on discussions that are only able to happen IRL.

We had over 100 individuals apply for magma Cohort 1, and are selecting 25 builders the residency this March. We are doing a cohort 2 in September 2024. Our goal is to run 2 cohorts year, and do active community engagement online and regionally throughout the year to facilitate learning and cross-pollination.

Location:

90 minutes out of Nairobi. Kenya has a visa free policy, which makes it accessible for all builders from across Africa and the world.

Who:

For Cohort 1, ~80% will be founders of DApps and protocols, as well as projects coming onchain. ~20% individual builders who are working on multiple projects, researchers, and really talented folks working in Ethereum.

We also have global researchers from the PSE team, EF EcoDev, Ethereum L2s, founders, community builders, and individuals playing key roles in the Ethereum ecosystem coming to support. 5 out of 10 supporters will be individuals who have been to Zuzalu before.

Do Cohort 1, learn from various experiments, and hone the path to building and growing a community of African builders bringing our economy onchain.