Block, Inc., a global technology company specializing in financial services, has announced the winners of the TBD Hackathon—a competition aimed at driving innovation, creativity, and technological advancements in payment solutions across Africa.
The grand prize winner, Emmanuel Kufre, built Blink, a decentralized wallet application that processes freelancers’ payments. The event, held in collaboration with the Africa Bitcoin Conference, challenged developers to create novel payment solutions leveraging tbDEX, TBD’s open-source money protocol.
“The level of creativity and technical expertise showcased during the TBD Hackathon has been truly inspiring,” said Angie Jones, Global VP of Developer Relations at Block.
“There is so much incredible talent and innovation taking place all over the continent, and the winning teams are truly representative of the future of financial solutions across Africa. They have all demonstrated a deep understanding of the challenges facing a pan-African payment system, and have developed solutions that have the potential to transform the way people transact. We look forward to seeing how these exceptional developers continue to drive innovation in payments and in technology overall.
Participants in the hackathon tackled crucial challenges, including limited access to banking, high transaction fees, and inefficient cross-border payments. Each team, made up of 1-2 developers, used the tbDEX SDK to build their payment applications within a sandbox environment.
