₿trust, a non-profit organization created to decentralize Bitcoin (BTC) software development, announced the Africa Open Source Cohort and welcomed its founding member Vladimir Fomene yesterday.
Fomene is a Cameroonian software engineer with a self-confessed preference for JavaScript and Rust. He discovered Bitcoin development through the Qala Africa developer program, where he had the opportunity to learn about and build on Bitcoin. He is drawn to Bitcoin’s ability to reduce the economic power held by governments and the possibility of frictionless global payments.
The Open Source Cohort is ₿trust’s first step in achieving its goal to locate, educate and remunerate Bitcoin developers in the global south including Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Through the initiative, ₿trust will fund and support developers looking to contribute to Bitcoin-free and open-source software.
₿trust was first introduced in a tweet by Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z in February 2021, when they gave 500 BTC to support the growth of the Bitcoin protocol, initially concentrating on teams in India and Africa. The inaugural board was revealed in December 2021 and since then, they have been striving to realize the original vision. This vision is finally becoming a reality.
The Africa Open Source Cohort program is meant for long-term contribution. Starting off, new members will be required to sign a one-year contract. The amount of each developer’s contribution to open-source Bitcoin projects will be one of several criteria used to determine compensation. Cohort developers will receive qualified leadership, mentorship, peer support, help managing relationships, and financial assistance such as stipends for hardware and other incidentals.
Obi Nwosu, a member of the ₿trust board, describes this type of investment into the Bitcoin ecosystem as speculative philanthropy investing that aims to boost the ecosystem’s overall worth rather than maximizing conventional financial metrics of return.
Nwosu stated in an interview with CoinDesk that he believes the benefits of Bitcoin decentralization will be comparable to those of the collaborative approach used by mathematicians and other scientists.
He added, “Mistrust in government is a common theme throughout the global south. This makes the region fertile ground for bitcoin adoption. Regions dominated by authoritarian governments need bitcoin the most. If that is indeed the case, why not invest and nurture Bitcoin developer communities in those regions?”
The ₿trust Africa Open Source Cohort will enrich the existing grant model with additional structure to make it more suitable for newcomers to Bitcoin open source development. ₿trust will iterate on this model as developers learn but will begin with a focus on mentorship, management, peer support, and project relations.