Jack Dorsey and Jay Z’s ₿trust, a non-profit organisation which exists to decentralise development of bitcoin software, has announced the acquisition of Qala, the leading African firm training the next generation of African Bitcoin and Lightning engineers.
The deal, which was completed on September 1, 2023, will see Qala rebrand as the ₿trust Builders Programme, to strengthen ₿trust’s mission to drive the development and education of Bitcoin open-source engineers from across the Global South.
Launched in 2021, ₿trust focuses on fostering developer talent and supporting the free and open source Bitcoin ecosystem by locating, educating, and remunerating Bitcoin open source engineers from the Global South.
Originally funded by Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z, ₿trust is currently headed up by a board of directors – Abubakar Nur Khalil, Carla Kirk-Cohen, Obi Nwosu and Ojoma Ochai. Under the quartet’s leadership, the organisation has launched the Africa Open Source Cohort, which offers support to its pioneer member, Vladimir Fomene, working on the Bitcoin Development Kit, and proudly sponsors the Africa Bitcoin Conference, an annual gathering for Bitcoin stakeholders from all around Africa and beyond.
Qala, founded in 2021, sources, trains and matches African software developers with leading Bitcoin companies from across the world, equipping its engineers with the most sought-after skills in the global Bitcoin talent market.
To date, Qala has built Africa’s largest online community of Bitcoin developers spanning over 42 countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda. With an impressive fellowship placement rate, the programmes’ alumni have secured roles at the likes of Galoy, SphinxChat and Bitnob, as well as open-source grants from ₿trust and Superlunar.
Meanwhile, Co-Founder & Director of Qala, Bernard Parah, says “When we launched our programme in 2021, our goal was clear – to build a critical mass of African engineers with a deep understanding of Bitcoin’s capabilities to transform the continent. Today’s announcement significantly accelerates this mission, strengthening our capacity to not only expand our existing community, but effectively resource them to play a major role in influencing Bitcoin’s open-source development as a vital solution to Africa’s unique socio-economic challenges.”
“With this in mind, we strongly believe our new transition should not only be viewed as a massive boost for the Bitcoin ecosystem, but a crucial foundation in leveraging Bitcoin as the gateway and catalyst to financial freedom in Africa and the Global South.”
As part of the deal, Femi Longe, CEO of Qala, and Stephanie Titcombe, Programmes Manager at Qala, will officially join ₿trust as Programme Leads at ₿trust Builders. To kickstart the next phase of its growth journey, ₿trust Builders’ programme will pivot to focus on open-source training and has launched a call for its next cohort of senior African software developers seeking to transition into building for Bitcoin and Lightning.
Ojoma Ochai, Board Member at ₿trust, outlines “We’re incredibly proud to welcome Femi and his excellent team to ₿trust. With Qala’s extensive outreach and world-class programmes, the organisation has made rapid progress in driving open-source development in the Global South through the advancement of education within the region, which is heavily aligned with our core mission at ₿trust.”
“As we move forward, we’re fully focussed on not only building on Qala’s impressive work in Africa, but empowering more developers throughout the Global South with the support they need to build truly innovative open source solutions through the power of Bitcoin.”
In September 2023, ₿trust Builders will launch the ‘Build for Africa’ Hackathon, which seeks to encourage makers to build solutions that solve African challenges and increase bitcoin adoption in Africa. This will serve as a platform for open innovation and collaborative problem-solving, where makers will converge to generate novel ideas through an idea hack focused on tackling Africa-specific challenges, and accelerate their bitcoin projects through mentorship in design, development, and lightning integration. The hackathon is a key pre-event for the Africa Bitcoin Conference on 1 – 3 December in Accra, Ghana, which ₿trust is proud to support for the second year running.
For more information about ₿trust Builders (formerly Qala) and its mission to train the next generation of Bitcoin and Lightning Developers, visit: https://builders.btrust.tech.
