The Nigerian government inks a deal with Developing Africa Group to enable the international commercialisation of all IP forms created and registered within Nigeria.
The Nigerian government recently signed a three-year intellectual property rights(IPR) agreement with Developing Africa Group. The deal seeks to establish a national wallet and an IP exchange marketplace to allow the international commercialisation of all IP forms developed and registered in Nigeria.
Consequently, the Nigerian government will provide a grant to the Developing Africa Group to help them develop the platform for IP rights. The IP forms covered include trademarks, patents, and copyrights such as song lyrics, videos, shows, lectures, podcasts, and streamable content. As such, citizens would be able to upload IP forms, trade them and receive royalties in their wallets.
Development Africa Group Choses Blockchain Tech
The Development Africa Group will carry out its end of the bargain by employing blockchain technology. The firm has chosen Koibanx as the tokenisation and payments engine to be used throughout the country. It also decided on the Algorand Blockchain as the protocol to build on.
Koibanx is the leading Latin American asset tokenisation and Blockchain financial infrastructure company. It will be in charge of implementing the wallet and the tokens (IP token and Naira equivalent stable token) to pay the creators. Also, the overall technical integration of the various vendors in play would be handled by the firm.
According to Ben Oguntala, CEO of Developing Africa Group, all necessary tokens would be deployed on the Algorand blockchain. He reiterated the platform’s environmental friendliness as a match to the government’s philosophy for the creator economy. He said,
“Algorand’s protocol not only provides the performance, scalability, security and functionality required to implement such a large scale project but is also environment-friendly, which is important for the Government and has a huge philosophical match with the `creators economy industry´ we’re targeting here.”
Interestingly, the Koibanx- Algorand collaboration would not be the first of its kind. The two companies have previously worked together on several public and private initiatives across Latin America. This collaborative effort includes a national blockchain-based citizens ID and information program in Colombia and El Salvador’s National Registration platform. It also has over ten different payments implementation for banks in the region.
Nonetheless, Koibanx CEO Leo Elduayen said the Nigerian IPR Wallet initiative is more significant. According to him, this project could easily change the lives of over 50 million people. He said,
“What the Developing Africa Group has achieved is truly amazing. The Nigerian IPR Wallet is probably the largest crypto project worldwide. When we took El Salvador´s challenge (Koibanx also managed Chivo´s Lightning Network implementation), we impacted the lives of millions of citizens. After this experience, we embarked on the Colombian government platform handling tens of millions believe this initiative could change the life of +50M people easily.”
Meanwhile, the new initiative is expected to launch before January 2023. It also confirms Nigeria as a leading country in Africa for crypto adoption. Its CBDC, the eNaira is getting global acclaim, and its teeming youth population is helping attract crypto companies to push blockchain adoption. The new IP form initiative will further cement its status in Africa.
Do you think the new IP initiative would greatly benefit the Nigerian creator economy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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Chris is a crypto enthusiast and a firm believer in the blockchain’s ability to create a new financial paradigm. Through writing, Chris hopes to expose the intricacies of this disruptive technology and how it is beneficial to Africans and developing countries. He aims to give readers a rational and unbiased outlook of the industry by equipping them with the necessary information to make enlightened investment decisions.
