Delivering change in Ethiopia: lessons and reflections

Input | Output (IO) was founded on the promise of being a catalyst for change—to transform global systems for everyone, everywhere, and to champion products that are built ethically from the outset. Since our early days in 2017, these principles have remained constant. Through hard lessons, trials, triumphs, and everything in between, we’ve embraced the guiding principle that people are at the center of everything we do. We aim to hold antiquated systems accountable and provide ways to update those systems, while collaborating with innovators to create solutions that bring people together. It hasn’t been easy, but as we look back, we’re humbled by what we’ve been able to accomplish.

The seeds of this mission were planted during a TEDx Talk in Bermuda in 2013, where IO’s founder and CEO Charles Hoskinson sketched a bold vision for using blockchain to provide secure access to essential personal documents for up to three billion people worldwide. He saw blockchain’s potential to not only democratize money but also protect identity, ownership, and opportunity on a global scale. ‘I believe that this blockchain technology, this Bitcoin thing that everyone seems to be talking about, actually has some solutions inside of it,’ he said.

This idea set us on a journey that would revolutionize our way of thinking about blockchain’s capabilities - after all, if it could protect and democratize money, why couldn’t it do the same for identity, ownership, and attainment? Better yet, why couldn’t we do it for some of the world’s most underrepresented communities?

Bringing blockchain to Africa: why we chose Ethiopia

Africa embodied this vision in profound ways, offering both a powerful opportunity and a vital mission to leverage blockchain as a force for good. With over one billion people and one of the youngest populations globally, the continent’s vast potential and pressing need for technological inclusion aligned perfectly with our goal of using blockchain to drive meaningful and accessible change. By embracing this generation, we could advance a vision of decentralization, where individuals could gain access to financial systems, identity solutions, and educational resources without traditional institutional barriers, empowering them to lead the way in global innovation and progress.

From the outset, we concluded that any initial work in Africa would not be about financial gain. Given the opportunity, our focus would be on impact. Our purpose was to realize blockchain’s promise in a setting where it could genuinely change lives. We envisioned citizens benefiting from verifiable, immutable credentials on-chain that would open doors to jobs, essential services, and new opportunities—bringing to light a fairer, more inclusive system. Through these early initiatives, we sought to not only empower individuals, but also to demonstrate what was truly possible with this technology.

Before we began this journey, we started small. We piloted our training program for IT students in Greece and Barbados, demonstrating how blockchain technology could be shared through education, and were soon ready to shift gears.

After exploring areas within Africa, we decided that Ethiopia was the right place to incubate and build this new technology. Representatives from across the government were early proponents of transformative systems and were very public about their plans to accelerate the country’s digital future. In fact, the newly elected Prime Minister was already putting the finishing touches to Digital Ethiopia 2025 - a 155-page report approved by the Ethiopian Council of Ministers in June of 2020. In its foreword, the leader called for ‘urgent, bold, and coordinated action’ to help transform the country’s digital infrastructure, claiming that the nation ‘is yet to realize its potential in the digital space and leverage technology to build a more prosperous society.’

In what was perceived as an open invitation for partners, he concluded: ‘This strategy is the first step and fundamentally a call to action. I invite all those committed to a prosperous future for Ethiopia to join together and contribute all they can.’

Charles Hoskinson, mentioned by name in the report, was more convinced than ever that the Prime Minister shared his dream and a mutual desire to harness the potential of blockchain technology. Charles called it a ‘philosophical alignment, a technological alignment, the atmospherics at the time were pushing for e-governance.’ They were looking for innovators to help them achieve their ambitious goals, and, luckily for us - we were pushing at an open door, where ministers were eager to meet us.

Within a month after the election, Charles was on the ground unveiling plans for our engineers and educators to help train local blockchain developers and to explore the use of Cardano to improve the traceability of produce and the efficiency of the agriculture sector.

The initial focus was coffee, the export of which accounted for around 10 percent of the government’s revenue. Coffee plants grow ubiquitously in Ethiopia, creating enormous trade opportunities. Still, many of the country’s four million small-scale farmers do not have land registry records or bank accounts, let alone the technology to track their products from crop to cup and thus maximize their value.

Early steps: educating a new generation of blockchain developers

To begin, we suggested the government should focus on teaching recent graduates how to use Haskell, thus allowing them to develop a ledger of produce and producers, potentially on the Cardano blockchain.

Looking back on those early days, Charles had echoed the optimism felt across the team, the Ethiopian Government, and the students: ‘We had a young, hopeful leader who the West had embraced,’ he recalled. ‘He was the only world leader with training in cryptography, and we thought, ‘Gosh, if we’re doing cryptocurrencies and the head of state can read our papers, that would be a huge step forward.’

‘That is what gave us so much hope. He had the right mindset, the youth, the charisma and was clearly in charge of his government.’

So the courses began with the initial training cohort made up entirely of women, reflecting a progressive commitment to making technology accessible to everyone. The development and expansion of IO’s educational offering allowed us to take on new challenges, implementing new models for how we would conduct these courses in the future. In Ethiopia, we offered a stipend program to help offset the weekly living expenses for some of the students, recognizing that several of them had to quit their jobs to enroll in the program. Many faced daily bus commutes of up to four hours. Others had moved away from home for three months, sometimes leaving their young children behind with relatives. But the spirit and enthusiasm of the students and our educators were infectious. Tailored courses for women entering a career in STEM were believed to be a catalyst for future economic opportunities and growth across the region, and we were proud to play a part in that.

The Haskell training program ultimately jumpstarted our efforts in Africa, illustrating our commitment to empowering the people of Ethiopia to take back ownership of their futures and enable them to compete in the global economy. Which is why we weren’t surprised that the government agreed to move forward with the ‘system for students,’ which would ultimately rely on Atala PRISM (since migrated into the Hyperledger Identus project). We understood the need for a system like this, acknowledging that developing nations often don’t have the foundational resources in place to help keep track of critical personal information. This was ultimately our north star. What Charles had described all those years ago in Bermuda was coming to fruition.

Charles noted: ‘Our vision was to start with education but then roll out across the entire economy.’ ‘This would have been the first nation to have a self-sovereign identification system, which meant every citizen in Ethiopia owned their own identity.

People could then take that as a portable credential, and eventually it would work its way into passports and the banking system … That was our vision, and we said, ‘Wow, all we need to do is add a payment system, and then everyone is their bank, and Ethiopia will go from one of the worst financial systems to the most advanced banking system in the world.’

‘Seventy per cent of the country is at or below the age of 30, so if you start with the education system, you’ll cover most of the country within five years. That was our thinking.’

Navigating challenges: adapting to uncertainty and conflict

By April 2021, a contract was signed to initiate the pilot project. We were ready to kick start this journey with 10,000 students as part of a phased approach across two dozen schools, with the potential of rolling into a second phase that would include a nationwide program reaching five million students and 750,000 teachers in almost 3,700 schools.

But then progress stalled. By the end of October, we could see the challenges ahead in reaching our deadline, but we remained committed. The Ethiopian people were experiencing a civil war, changes in their government, and uncertainty around who would ultimately end up in power. Nevertheless, we continued to push forward. Our commitment to working with a government body wasn’t in question; after all, we were doing this to help inspire and empower the next wave of students who would go on to become the next generation of leaders.

As the project progressed, our Atala PRISM team had to adapt. One significant change in scope outside our control meant we had to pivot our plans, from producing an app-based system to a web-based version accessible via mobile phones. It wasn’t a problem. We’re a research and development company and we accept challenges and stress test systems to fit the needs of our clients. And as with any changes in government, we recognized quickly that new leaders and new internal divisions would have their own ideas about how they wanted to create a digital identity solution. That uncertainty didn’t change our mission of delivering a solution that students and teachers could use and trust. So we kept working.

Staying the course: evidence-based research and resilience

It’s important to note that here at IO we take pride in our methodical research practice and we apply it to everything we do. This research-first principle brings a sense of confidence to our users by designing systems that keep developers and companies at the forefront of safety, transparency, security, and accountability. After all, in a world riddled with data breaches, mistrust, and uncertainty, we can’t always afford to adopt a ‘build fast and break things’ mentality. So yes, our project in Ethiopia slowed, but we still delivered. Hinting at the challenges, Charles said: ‘It’s not our side that is creating a delay … When you do large-scale government programs that are very bureaucratic in jurisdictions that are growing into a digital economy, you’ve got to be patient.’

And so we remained patient. We navigated the governmental changes and uncertainties within the region, and we did so by doing what we do best: building products and solutions rooted in evidence-based research that can scale for continued adoption and meet the demands of our antiquated digital infrastructure. Most importantly, we aimed to meet the need of the most important stakeholder in any public or private system: its users. These are the people who interact with the system every day, and who seek to lead the happiest, healthiest, and most fulfilling lives they can.

At this point, we could have stepped back and said the challenges truly outweighed our bottom line, yet we persevered. IO is built on the promise of bringing transparency and accountability to the forefront of our systems, while returning power to the hands of their users, so they can make the decisions of when, how, and with whom they share their personal data.

As is our true nature as a company, we continued, despite the complexities and challenges, and ultimately delivered against our promise. Despite becoming available a year after the target release date, the pilot proved the on-chain credential model worked. By June 2023, 38,000 pupils were registered as users, far more than the 10,000 initially expected.

We undertook this work despite receiving no financial payment. In fact, we funded the project entirely from IO’s corporate treasury—without drawing from the core Cardano development budget. We also deployed our best people to ensure the success of the project, despite the odds. Reflecting on the decision to stay on, Charles said: ‘It would have been ridiculously easy to walk away when the civil war broke out. Instead, we stayed for three more years trying to make it work.’ He added. ‘It got to the point where we said, ‘Look, we’ll do Addis Ababa for free, and then we’ll try and find a local partner and give this contract to them.’

Why did we take the hit? Because we cared about the students and their future. We cared about leveling the playing field and giving people the tools they needed to play a bigger role in their own lives and to do more for their communities, and for Ethiopia.

‘This wasn’t about money with us,’ said Charles. ‘It was about philosophy and the mission.’

We learned a lot - we even made a few mistakes - but we did it. With a successful pilot, and against the odds, we demonstrated that a working and scalable blockchain identity system could be implemented.

Learning from Ethiopia: the evolution of Hyperledger Identus

Although sadly our vision to expand the system in Ethiopia was not realized, it was not the end of the story. In fact, it marked the beginning of a new chapter and a fresh approach. Enter Hyperledger Identus, a project within the Hyperledger Foundation - the well regarded open-source incubator for developing blockchain and related technologies.

When IO marked its 8th anniversary in February 2024, it was perhaps inevitable that mathematics would feature. It said: ‘In Pythagorean numerology, 8 represents victory, prosperity, and overcoming challenges. It’s seen as a harbinger of wealth and fortune in Chinese and other Asian traditions, embodying the idea of flourishing and expansion.’

Hyperledger Foundation is part of LF Decentralized Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering innovation and collaboration. It serves as a flagship initiative of the Linux Foundation (LF), a non-profit established in 2000 to support the Linux operating system, which forms the core of many computing systems. Over the years, LF has evolved into a ‘foundation of foundations,’ encompassing projects like Hyperledger to advance decentralized technologies.

A recent addition to Hyperledger’s roster is Identus, a platform developed by IO’s Atala team to help businesses develop decentralized identity solutions. Hyperledger Identus uses self-sovereign identity (SSI), secure and decentralized records that provide users with not only the means of creating their digital identity but also the power to manage and control their use personally.

Identus is specifically designed to support businesses of all sizes, allowing them to integrate and rapidly build and deploy decentralized identity applications. Crucially, it is a versatile system that makes it easy for users to tailor it to their specific needs.

The work done on the Ministry of Ethiopia project was a critical component in the evolution of Identus. Indeed, when Identus was announced, Charles, an advocate for the open-source approach to blockchain development, went on to credit the work in Ethiopia with helping to develop Identus. ‘We have got this amazing identity framework which is best in class and the same set of open-source technology as IBM and many other major Fortune 500 companies,’ he said. ‘Education is an excellent application for SSI and the Ministry of Education project proved that. We now have a use case that bears out that SSI is a great technology for the education sector … We’ve now been able to build out our platform and push it out to the Hyperledger project for everyone to be able to use. It has been donated to Hyperledger as an ongoing community project, so now the community is now directly benefiting from the work in Ethiopia.’

The proof was in the pudding. Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director at the Hyperledger Foundation, welcomed our decision to share Identus. ‘Input | Output understood from a decentralized development perspective that doing it in the open in a global community that has been working in digital identity for many years would be the sensible next step. Hyperledger Identus is a big contribution. A lot of time, effort and resources went into building Identus and we’re very happy to host this community.’

Our journey with Atala PRISM came full circle. What started as a pilot program turned into an open-source system that millions of people around the world can now leverage for architecting their own SSI solutions.

RealFi: advancing financial inclusion with Cardano

And just as we’ve seen the evolution of Atala PRISM, we’ve evolved as an organization to understand the power of harnessing creativity, passion, and determination directly from creators and consumers - and just how much untapped potential there is out there, especially when you have no need to go through some type of middleman. This was the inspiration for the creation of RealFi.

RealFi, short for Real Finance, represents the vanguard of efforts to leverage Cardano to empower underserved populations that lack access to financial services.

Bridging the gap between emerging markets and private credit investors, RealFi is designed to make capital more accessible for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing regions, by providing data-driven tools that address a critical barrier for lenders: assessing risk in unfamiliar markets.

By offering transparent and quantifiable insights into credit risk, RealFi empowers lenders to confidently support businesses poised to drive growth and resilience within their communities. It’s business ideas like these that we are proud to be part of because they are powerful, real-world examples of how our blockchain technology can foster inclusive and sustainable financial systems in regions where billions of people are excluded from the formal economy.

Commenting on the launch of RealFi earlier this year, Charles Hoskinson highlighted its alignment with Cardano's mission to use blockchain technology to create life changing value for those who need it most. He stated, ‘We really want to focus on the 3 billion people who don't have reliable access to financial services. If we look at a lot of the markets that we play in, we're super excited to bring those markets in through identity and through wallets into the cryptocurrency space, and then giving them access to RealFi. For the first time ever, they can participate in a global market fairly.’

This commitment reflects IO’s ongoing drive to foster inclusive growth and financial empowerment. We remain dedicated to expanding socially conscious decentralized finance (DeFi) initiatives like RealFi and helping more businesses to leverage Cardano as a tool to tackle the economic injustices that affect countless lives worldwide.

Looking forward: lessons learned and the case for resilience

We felt it was necessary to share our side of the story because it’s an important one, both for us and for those invested in our journey in Ethiopia. We hope that by telling it we can provide people with an insight into the challenges such complex projects bring and to address misconceptions about what transpired.

Africa is essential to fully realizing our vision and ambitions. The continent and its people matter to us. There is so much more we aspire to achieve across the region and elsewhere in the world. And we will do more—with greater experience, focus, and determination.

Indeed, we continue to explore new use cases and jurisdictions for empowering citizens across the global south with their own decentralized digital identity via Identus.

At the end of the day, it isn’t about how many critics you convince you delivered something; it’s about looking back on testimonials from students, or the relationships we’ve built with some who have even gone on to become part of the IO family. And ultimately, the lessons learned that help inform the next wave of innovation we commit to.

Our journey has just begun, and our mission remains unwavering: to empower communities and deliver real change through technology, knowing that, as Orwell said, ‘the essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.’ Instead, we seek progress, learning each time to strive toward a future that’s brighter for everyone, everywhere.