magma is a peer-to-peer coordination point for founders building Africa’s economy and finance onchain.

It's a two week residency for builders working across the African continent, where we also have global researchers, infrastructure builders, and leaders from the Ethereum ecosystem joining to support hands on.

Why does magma exist?

• Crypto and decentralized tools have a strong product market fit in Africa! Crypto adoption is growing fast in Africa due to its utility, not just speculation. African builders are driving the creation of simple financial and economic tools that have real utility for the masses, and magma is there to support them hands on, where it matters.
• The African builder community is very fragmented (54 countries, and long distances between them). If we are building decentralized applications for the large African user bases, it makes more sense to build interoperable and modular tools instead of monolithic projects. So we need stronger coordination amongst ourselves. And while several builders are in shared TG groups, IRL gatherings are critical for strong coordination and trust.
• There is a huge disconnect between African ecosystems and the global Ethereum world. No major global Ethereum conference has taken place in Africa recently (yet!), so bringing builders and researchers from overseas to the continent is going to be critical.
• magma is here to build community, and create the foundations for peer to peer support.

Who is magma for? For Cohort 1, we are curating a group of 25 builders, ~80% will be founders of DApps and protocols, as well as projects coming onchain. ~20% individual builders who are working on multiple projects, researchers, and really talented folks working in Ethereum. On top of that, we also have 10 global researchers from the PSE team, EF EcoDev, Ethereum L2s, founders, community builders, and individuals playing key roles in the Ethereum ecosystem coming to support. 5/10 supporters will be individuals who have been to Zuzalu before.

Cost: magma is free for all participants joining. Accommodation, food, local transport, and programming is fully covered. Individuals just have to get themselves to the destination airport (Cohort 1 held in Nairobi, Kenya).

Structure of the 2 weeks:

• peer to peer learning, coordination, workshopping individual projects, open space.
• structured workshops and office hours with global builders on ZK, account abstraction, smart contracts, security, tokenomics, governance and DAOs, product, etc. More 1:1s and small groups than 1:many.
• space and time for builders to build, hack, do heads down work.
• community and trust building activities, open sharing circles, fireside chats on discussions that are only able to happen IRL.

Process & cadence:

• Cohort 1: 100+ builders applied for magma Cohort 1, and we are currently selecting 25 builders the residency this March.
• Cohort 2: planned for September 2024. Our plan is to run 2 cohorts year and grow the community.
• Active community development online and regionally throughout the year to facilitate learning and cross-pollination.

Location: 90 minutes out of Nairobi. Kenya has a visa free policy, which makes it accessible for all builders from across Africa and the world.

Learning & iteration: We are planning to experiment and learn a lot from Cohort 1, and hone the path to building and growing a community of African builders bringing our economy onchain!