Let me start by saying I'm extremely cynical and hardly believe those good things will work in a lot of African countries. Ethiopia and Nigeria both fall in that category of countries that know how to weaponize good things. Just trust me, I know.
So when I saw that the Ethiopian government is looking to embrace blockchain technology to improve their educational system, I took it with a drum of salt. The story is that IOHK of Cardano is going to introduce a blockchain-based solution to the problem.
Ethiopia, just like Nigeria is embroiled in large-scale civil unrest and political unrest. Even while I was reading the article on coindesk that did so much to sugarcoat how severe the situation is, I could sense it was much worse because, well, I'm from around here.
In a similar situation to Nigeria, thousands of people have been killed and forced to flee their homes due to insecurity. However, at least there's some good news and it is that the Cardano blockchain will provide a system that will track Ethiopia's academic records and improve the veracity of certificates coming out of the country.
I'm happy for Ethiopia and while I'm extremely cynical because I know that the government will try to hijack it, I'm still happy about this bold move by a blockchain-based company. According to John O’Connor, IOHK’s director of African Operations, who is also partly Ethiopian;
“I studied at Oxford and I was intrigued why there were no students from Ethiopia. When I asked about it I was told [the college] didn’t recognize their credentials. They don’t have enough information about what’s happening in Ethiopian universities,”
Yeah if you a country is facing a humanitarian crisis then it is possible that education won't be doing so well. Most of the violence is going on at Tigray, a town that borders Eritrea.
According to a publication on NPR;
So far, the conflict has killed thousands of people, many of whom allegedly died as a result of indiscriminate shelling of cities in Tigray by Ethiopian forces.
So in summary, most of the deaths might be collateral damage due to the Ethiopian government's fight with rebel forces. Well, that sucks, but at least you have blockchain technology to manage your education now. Once your government stops killing you, you're all going to be very smart.
I can't quantify how much I hate here.
