For years, ecosystems have been celebrated for hackathons, meetups and conferences, but when the lights go out — literally and figuratively — the momentum stalls. Behind every headline-grabbing raise lies a graveyard of ideas that never made it past pitch decks and demo days

Aya HQ, a Ghana- and Kenya-based Web3 talent hub, wants to change that survival rate. Branding itself a “No Bullshit Zone,” it provides the very foundation needed to get to the top: light, internet, and a place to build. Sometimes, that’s all a founder really needs to scale.

The Journey Before Aya HQ

Aya HQ’s founder, Eric Annan, did not arrive at this mission overnight. His journey into Web3 was impacted by both experiments and failures, including early ventures such as Digital Kudi and KibitX. 

Over time, he collaborated with various innovators across Africa’s blockchain ecosystem, and shifted his focus to bridging the talent-trust gap.

These ventures gave him proximity to Africa’s earliest blockchain experiments, but not every idea survived. Shutting down his initial ventures was as much about recognising limits as it was about recalibrating ambition.

That willingness to restart laid the groundwork for Aya HQ, which he founded alongside Pishikeni Tukura, and Dennis Ukonu. Rather than build another startup chasing the next wave, Annan chose to build infrastructure — a hub that would give others the basic conditions he once lacked.

A Different Kind of Hub

Aya HQ has now supported over 35 startups across four cohorts, two run independently and two with partners. What makes the model different, Annan argues, are the intangible assets often ignored in conversations about African startups: trust, belief, confidence, and refusing to sell yourself short just because you’re African. 

And when those cohorts graduate, Aya doesn’t just send them off, the hub continues to track and support its alumni, ensuring they have the tools, networks, and mentorship to scale and succeed.

He describes Aya HQ as a collective where founders are not competing for growth but are instead lifted by network effects. It is less about events and more about outcomes. 

At a recent panel, the founder of Digipay captured this impact when he said that without Aya, his company wouldn’t exist. “Aya HQ gave me a home,” he stated. “We had light, internet, and everything needed for the business.” For Annan, that single line, more than any pitch deck, is the proof of concept.

Annan’s bet has always been that Africa’s sustainable growth lies not in waiting for outsiders, but in trusting its own builders. “We are waiting for people who do not look like us to help us,” he said during our conversation, shaking his head at the thought. Aya’s work is a rebuke to that dependence, a belief that talent here can build globally competitive products if given the right scaffolding.

Investors Are Paying Attention

Aya HQ is also attracting backers who once looked past Africa’s blockchain sector. Global chains like Lisk have funded its work, and conversations are underway with investors to raise around $10 million. 

According to Annan, part of this will go into a $5 million microfund to back incubated startups, while the rest is earmarked for a special economic zone in Accra that will serve as both a founder campus and a live-in residency.

While the bigger investor community is beginning to view Aya HQ as a bet with returns, Annan points out that Y Combinator recovered its entire investment in African startups from just one exit. For him, that statistic is evidence that value already exists here, it simply needs better pipelines. 

Aya’s role, he says, is to prepare founders and developers to meet global demand without waiting for validation from abroad.

Just two years ago, Annan says he was questioned about Aya HQ’s direction, “‘What is Aya doing?’ ‘We don’t know actually what Aya is doing.’”

Now, those same voices are coming back to ask how they can help. “What excites me the most is being stubborn on the Aya mission,” he said. “We have had a plan since 2017, and waking up every day I begin to see that mission becoming clear.”

For him, leadership isn’t about cleverness or charisma. It’s about patience and faith, creating space for founders to fail, learn, and try again. That is why he takes pride not just in success stories, but in the quiet transformations he sees daily: entrepreneurs whose mindsets, and sometimes lives, have changed within eight months of joining Aya’s programmes.

This stubbornness, to hold ground until others catch up, may well be Aya HQ’s greatest asset. It is building what Eric calls the “plumbing” of Africa’s Web3 ecosystem: reliable infrastructure, credible founders, investable startups. It is not the loudest model, but it may be the most durable.

Aya’s story is still unfolding, but the takeaway so far is that survival in Africa’s startup sector requires more than a drive. It needs power, patience, and places like Aya HQ, where light shines on, and founders finally get to build.

The hub is still young, and scaling remains one of Annan’s greatest challenges. Should Aya HQ go deeper in Ghana, or expand into Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town? Yes, with the goal to build an African pipeline that doesn’t just feed into global markets but competes with them.

For Annan, however, the real fulfilment is not expansion for its own sake but impact on the ground. “Working out and seeing people talk about what Aya is doing, how their life has changed by connecting with Aya… it’s more than inspiring for me and that’s what gave me fulfilment. The money for me, it’s just a plus.”

Aya HQ may not yet rival Silicon Valley in capital, but in resilience, community, and conviction, it is already setting a standard.

This shift can be attributed to an increase in global ratification of the technology where approximately 44% of the top 100 public companies, including tech giant Amazon, Tencent, Nike and MacDonalds.

More and more businesses are venturing towards the new technology prompted by the need for increased trust, security, transparency, and traceability of data shared across business networks.

ALSO READ: Blockchain memo: The State of Blockchain in Africa

Moreover, the most significant appeal of blockchain technology in an African context is that it is both cost-effective and efficient, for which there is a real need and can potentially accelerate the continent’s socio-economic growth. It is thus imperative that the development of Africa’s blockchain advancements be showcased to the rest of the world.

To champion this, Bitcoin Events’ flagship event, the Blockchain Africa Conference, is returning for its 9th annual edition.

Date: 16 – 17 March 2023

Times: 08:00 – 19:00

Venue: The Galleria, Sandton, Johannesburg

The continent’s most prominent blockchain event will take place from 16-17 March 2023 at The Galleria in Sandton, South Africa.

The event promises to foster valuable in-person and virtual interaction following two years of the conference being held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic protocols.

The prestigious event is set to bring together the world’s most innovative ideas, market disruptors, top industry trends, and technologies on which the future marketplace will operate.

The conference will spotlight global trends and disruptors, and how market players can capitalise on the opportunities and best respond to the threats. World-class international and local experts will be unpacking how blockchain technology and crypto assets are transforming business operations globally and on the African continent.

Bitcoin Events Director Sonya Kuhnel noted: “Much is to be said about blockchain’s impact on Africa’s developing economies, including its inability to recognise tribal lines or national borders. Instead, blockchain provides us with tools to bridge and connect communities, share value and ideas across borders, and empower a new generation of young African voices, as shared during the 2022 conference. The African content holds endless possibilities that can be directed at advancing socio-economic growth through blockchain. This year, we want to reiterate that Africa is ready for business. We plan to continue bringing together top experts to captivate and educate a global audience and put Africa on a global scale.”

Since its inception in 2015, the conference has attracted over 9000 attendees from 160 countries. It has showcased the best in blockchain and cryptocurrency innovation and disruption from across the globe, with a spotlight on the African continent. This year, the focus is on how companies are implementing blockchain-based solutions to their business models, with special attention given to the many innovative real-world use cases of this technology. Companies are no longer asking “why” but discussing “how to” use blockchain technology. The time for asking why this technology should be used is over, and the time to implement this technology in existing systems and build better systems is here.

This year’s exciting line-up of key speakers and experts include the likes of John Kamara – Founder of Adanian Labs and Afyarekod and Chairman of the African Blockchain Centre, Rene Reinsberg, Co-founder of Celo and President of Celo Foundation, Founder of Stake Capital Group, and Curve Core Team Member Julien Bouteloup, the Executive Director of the Interledger Foundation, Briana Marbury and the CEO and Founder of Eight BV, Michaël van de Poppe.  They will share incredible insights, debates, and panel discussions, focusing on use cases of how businesses use blockchain technology and crypto assets.

Commenting on the impact of Blockchain in Africa, John Kamara said: “I believe blockchain is a critical part of the future of the global economy and Africa has to play an important role in this technology. We must become infrastructure owners and not just users; we must also build our own stable tokens and not just keep consuming other values. Web 2.0 is also a critical part of the adoption of blockchain technology. This means we have to converge the ecosystem so we can really mine the value of the technology for us by us the way we want to make it work in our continent.”

Rene Reinsberg also noted: “Blockchain technology has demonstrated real-world impact, empowering communities where the adoption of digital assets is highest. Combined with fast, scalable mobile-first platforms like Celo, industries can benefit from transparent, on-chain infrastructure, providing greater financial access and prosperity for all.”

Emerging technology has become the crux of most sectors in society. Recently, these sectors have expanded to include finance, logistics, supply chain, healthcare, telecommunications and agriculture. Blockchain technology has enabled farmers to track vital information regarding their products and processes. Subsequently, this data has increased the transparency of supply chains and reduced issues related to illegal and unethical production¹. Panel discussions on the 16^th will include ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Blockchain in Healthcare’ and ‘The Future of Stablecoins Over the Global Financial Market’. In addition to the panel discussions, guests can look forward to fireside chats, keynote speakers, exhibitions, workshops, an exclusive opening night dinner reserved for VIPs, a cocktail and networking event to be held on the rooftop terrace, and a closing night networking event that will be open to all.

Last year, the conference saw over 1900 attendees, with 60% from Africa, come together to gain insights on how to grow their businesses, capture business leads and make genuine business connections.

“This platform is an incredible opportunity for companies, startups, governments, and youth to connect and learn from business use cases and to take a step and scale Africa’s socio-economic growth for e-commerce and entrepreneurship while unleashing the continent’s potential to the rest of the globe,” concludes Kuhnel.

Since its conception in early 2021, Blockbuild.Africa a blockchain and crypto media platform has successfully hosted two editions of The converge (virtual events) with over 500 attendees quarterly.

The Converge remains arguably the only virtual blockchain and crypto event set to discuss the possibilities and issues surrounding blockchain in Nigeria and Africa.

In 2022, blockbuild.Africa believes that the boom witnessed in the cryptocurrency space will take a greater turn, thus for many crypto enthusiasts we know that those that make the most out of crypto make do with the trend early.

Beyond the cryptocurrencies, the general blockchain ecosystem also saw growing trends in Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), Defi projects and the Metaverse world.

Themed, “Positioning Africa for the Metaverse”, This year’s Converge in its third edition, would focus on what is next for crypto and how everyone can make the most out of NFTs, metaverse, Web 3, play to earn or something we are yet to see.

Speaking on one of the many use cases of blockchain technology, Chimezie Chuta, Founder, Blockchain Nigeria User Group (BNUG) in the first edition said:

“It’s an addition on top of the Internet Protocol and that makes it very unique, extremely, unique in terms of disrupting, completely transforming the way we do businesses, the way we interact with one another, and the way we share information and value across the internet.”

Panel discussions at Converge III will discuss:

• Unpacking the intricacies of NFTs and Web3 in Africa
• NFTs, DEFI, Metaverse; Challenges and opportunities for Africa

The Converge is a quarterly Blockchain and Crypto ecosystem that aims to expose the ongoing innovations in the ecosystem and this third edition promises to come up with excitement like never before.

You can register here to be a part of Converge III event.