D. R. Congo in need of nation-building DApps
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has a population of over 80 million people.
Congo is one of the largest and strongest growth markets on the African continent.
Goma is the third largest city with a population of over 1 million with a vibrant tech industry.
Several U.N and World-Bank initiatives have failed to generate reliable public administrative capabilities.
Goma City Official contemplating DApps for Archives
One of our members has been informed by city officials that the city of Goma was considering implementing a Blockchain-based application for archiving the numerous certificates and deeds delivered to residents. Deeds often involve genealogy linkage and we sought to prepare ourselves to be able to compete once this tender will be official.
Genealogy DApp as the solution
The requirements for implementing this solution require the following:
- A scalable solution which the decentralised application offers.
- A solution to an existing need which is the lack of national ID.
- Revenue-generating stream by charging users verification fees once the app is live.
- The integration with the public notary filing system.
- Integrating monetary and identification (DID) linkages.
The Genealogy DApp for Goma will be marketed to young adults who can register freely while being technically-savvy enough to use a blockchain wallet to onboard relatives.
Alignment with Challenge KPIs
A genealogy DApp to showcase as a minimum viable product for future public city tender competition fulfils the Nation-building Challenges as follows:
Proposers commercial approach and negotiation strategy with different Governments
The upcoming digital transformation of archives held by city led the Goma Cardano Hub to envision a learning project which would set it ready to present a application whose features would link to archiving needs.
Participation of Cardano's Local Community Centers
Having hosted the Cardano Summit in Oct 2021, a Wada Hub with weekly meet-ups to learn Haskell and Plutus through project-based learning, the Goma Cardano Hub is a thriving community of Cardano adopters and members regularly attend Town Halls and other digital events.
Participation and/or partnerships with other international organizations
With one of the largest United Nations missions in the world headquartered in Goma, the implementation of a popular blockchain Dapp is likely to raise interest among international organizations seeking efficiencies.
Timely solution
- The DID is promising because it will "grow" with the young people
- It wil serve as a base for the creation of ID Documents
- ID cards are not yet implemented in DRC, so a popular DID could easily be incorporated
- Driving licence and election identification may use the DID as proof-of-identitication of the first level.
Commercially Viable
- Family trees become valuable as they grow. By offering them on the blockchain, we allow the Atala Prism Standard to hold the root element of the genealogy tree
- Identification at a young age allows a user to build a credit history or any other reputation-based assets
Challenges
- Adoption by the public services: driving licenses, elections, etc.
- Family composition challenges. African families are notoriously fluid and validators will rely on the most available data.
- Array merging: Uniting partners from different branches will require interoperability of DID.
Solutions
- Dem. Rep. of Congo is one of a handful nations without identification. Any DID which offers international interoperability will be hardly challanged.
- Every adult is able to self-Id. The children will be offered later the ability to claim a registered DID or break from the family trees if wrongly assigned. At adulthood, they can claim a root element if unwilling to be linked to an existing tree.
- Atala Prism offers interoperability as it implements the speficiations from the WWW Consortium at https://www.w3.org/TR/did-core