The Bank of Ghana in collaboration with EMTECH Solutions has announced the launch of an eCedi hackathon, to provide opportunities for FinTechs, developers, and innovators to design innovative solutions that explore various use cases of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Details
The event dubbed, “eCedi Hackathon”, is an innovation challenge set to run for a 12-week period, during which innovators will brainstorm to come up with solutions to address financial inclusion challenges in Ghana. The event will provide a platform for developers, innovators, and blockchain enthusiasts to showcase their creativity by exploring the many possibilities of CBDC technology and contribute to the future of Ghana’s digital financial ecosystem.
The event will culminate in a conference during which solutions judged to be impressive will be recognized in an award ceremony.
The event will bring together programmers, designers, engineers, and other professionals often with diverse backgrounds and skills to brainstorm ideas and create working prototypes or software applications.
The project is part of the eCedi research project and presents an opportunity for the Bank to explore emerging technologies, foster creativity, and contribute to the advancement of eCedi development.
Digging Deeper
The objectives of the eCedi Innovation Challenge include the following:
- Encourage local developers to showcase their creativity by collaborating with peers to generate innovative solutions toward solving financial inclusion problems based on the eCedi;
- Facilitate CBDC knowledge sharing among the Bank of Ghana, banks, and payment service providers;
- Provide an opportunity for networking and collaboration with other organizations and software developers working in the CBDC domain.
Proposed Innovations
The proposed innovations are expected to leverage eCedi tokens and APIs to prototype solutions or develop tools that address the following use cases:
- Use of eCedi in Merchants transactions (C2B)
- Use of eCedi for government payments (G2P, P2G)
- Use of eCedi in Agriculture and Trade (C2B, B2B)
- Data Privacy while holding or transacting with eCedi
- Use eCedi for inbound remittance
- Combatting the use of eCedi for illicit transactions
- Make the eCedi Interoperable
- KYC models solutions for eCedi
- Possible models for cross-border payments and transactions
Registration for the eCedi Innovation Challenge has been announced today, 3rd October 2023, and applications will be open on 6th October 2023.
For more information, visit the official website www.bog.gov.gh/eCedihackathon
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