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West Africa is home to approximately 381 million people and more. Unfortunately, the region has also been found to be a hotspot for climate change, which is likely to impact crops and food production, causing damage to its unique wildlife.
At the same time, West Africa is on track to become the next blockchain hotspot as well, with the region continuing to show interest in cryptocurrencies and digital solutions. In 2019, Nigeria ranked as the number one country for Bitcoin searches on Google, which could be linked to the importance of fintech adoption across the continent. For example, according to the Ernst & Young 2019 Global Fintech Adoption Index, one of the countries leading the thrust, South Africa, ranks as the fourth emerging market by interest in fintech.
A blockchain project that collects meteorological data
Due to Africa’s acceptance of new technologies and cryptocurrencies, the region is undoubtedly a great place to implement blockchain-based solutions to combat ongoing geographic challenges.
One of the companies hoping to make a difference is Telokanda, an open source weather technology company launched by a former Boeing and NASA engineer, has released a blockchain-based weather balloon initiative. Telokanda has partnered with the Telos blockchain platform to upload weather data generated by weather balloons, which are high-altitude devices that collect and transmit information about atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity and wind speed via a small sensor called a radiosonde.
The sensors transmit data to the Telos blockchain in real time, where the information is then stored in RAM. Telokanda uses this data to alert first responders to adverse weather conditions up to 12 hours in advance. The company is also prototyping a text messaging service to automatically alert citizens when the balloons detect adverse weather conditions.
Douglas Horn, chief architect of Telos, told Cointelegpraph that the Telokanda weather balloon project is currently being tested in West Africa due to the urgent need for weather data in the region:
“The lack of meteorological information in Africa has powerful negative effects on the local population, who have to cope without modern weather forecasts. This is also a global challenge, as lack of data in Africa limits weather forecasts in the Atlantic and beyond. “
The data show that meteorological observations from Africa exist mainly as incomplete and paper records. Even with the assistance of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva and the German Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst, African regions hesitate to digitize historical climate data. According to a Nature article, millions of weather records in Africa remain in cardboard boxes and rely on outdated technology as digitization efforts are stalled due to data ownership and distribution issues.
Despite the region’s challenges in logging weather conditions, Telokanda founder Nicolas Lopez told Cointelegraph that the company’s interest is in working in West Africa, in part because collecting its weather data is important to companies. US insurance companies that analyze the risk of hurricanes originating off the coast of Africa. “It is a unique region where knowing the weather is not only useful for local people, but also for the United States thousands of miles away,” he said.
While Telokanda’s sensor-equipped weather balloons work to collect data in West Africa, the Telos blockchain provides public transparency, allowing anyone to use and access the information collected. Although data transparency and the use of that information by others have been frowned upon by African meteorological officials, Horn said the project can prove its worth. “We want to make the data collection method as open source as possible so that anyone can contribute,” he said.
Cryptocurrency incentives for the collection of weather data
In addition to using blockchain for data transparency, the project uses smart contracts to send cryptocurrency to participants.
According to Horn, once a weather balloon transmits data to the Telos blockchain, a smart contract triggers Telos token payments (TLOS) to a user’s digital wallet. Participants are rewarded up to 1,000 TLOS, or around $ 15, which can then be converted into Nigerian naira or Ghanaian cedi using the Sesacash payment platform. Automated exchanges or market makers on Telos can also trade TLOS instantly for a variety of dollar-backed stablecoins or the South African rand.
The cryptocurrency incentive is an important feature of the Telokanda hot air balloon project, especially in regions like Africa, which have suffered from high inflation rates and volatile national currencies. For example, a recent report on the state of cryptocurrencies in Africa states that the South African rand has lost more than 50% of its value against the dollar over the past 10 years. The report therefore notes that, due to this and other economic challenges, Africa is an ideal region for the adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Regulatory challenges remain
While innovative, data-sharing challenges can hinder adoption of the Telokanda balloon project. According to a 2018 UN report on climate data sharing in Africa – which examines resolution 40 of the World Meteorological Organization on the policy and practice for exchanging meteorological data and products governing international data sharing – they remain the main obstacles when it comes to sharing data efficiently in Africa.
The report notes that strategic barriers include the absence of a legal obligation in WMO Resolution 40 to make data available nationally or for international use. Additionally, the document states that national laws and legislation in Africa restrict access to weather data due to national security concerns. Furthermore, many governments in the region do not understand the value of sharing data and the infrastructure required for such sharing. Although cryptocurrency is being adopted with open arms in Africa, data transparency via blockchain networks may not be as welcome.
While that may be, Lopez remains confident, noting that Telokanda has already completed seven prototype launches in North America and Nigeria and is now opening its program more broadly. Lopez further commented on the adoption of the cryptocurrency:
“The biggest obstacle we see is actually accessing the Eosio currency in some countries, as this has to be done on a country-by-country basis. In Senegal, for example, we want to provide data on wind direction to drone operators, but there is no clear exchange rate for the currency. “
