Akon’s Akoin wins him ‘Innovator Of The Year’ award at TechConNext Event
Aliaume Damala Badara Akon Thiam, better known as Akon, has won the award of ‘Innovator Of The Year’ offered by the Black Enterprise group during its TechConNext event last week.
TechConNext 2018
The TechConNext event brought together big names from the tech industry, like Intel group’s Corporate Strategic Procurement Director, Cory Hooks and Ebay’s Diversity Officer, Damien Hooper-Campbell.
Akon received the Award of Innovator Of The Year mainly for “Akoin”, a crypto currency project he created in Africa.
“Akoin is a new cryptocurrency, and the foundation of the Akoin Ecosystem – a unique global venture that offers an abundance of digital and real-life platforms and tools that create opportunity and inclusion for youth entrepreneurs, by allowing consumers to earn, save, and spend cryptocurrency right from their smartphone through a suite of blockchain-powered apps.” (Akoin)
“I think that blockchain and crypto could be the saviour for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people and brings the security back into the currency system, and also allows the people to utilize it in ways where they can advance themselves and not allow government to do those things that are keeping them down,” (Akon at the Cannes Festival).
Other award winners included Christopher Gray whose educational app, My Scholly, earned him Breakout Star of the Year. CEO, founder of Blavity Inc was named Founder of the Year and Lloyd Carney of Carney Global Ventures, LLC, as Trailblazer of the Year.
Akon Lightning Africa Initiative
In 2014, Akon teamed up with fellow Senegalese Niang and Malian entrepreneur, Bathily; and launched Akon Lighting Africa initiative. The project was aimed at ‘‘bringing clean energy to millions of households in Africa.’‘ They were able to raise 1 billion dollars to finance projects in Africa. It represented the first mega-solar project aimed at providing electricity to some 600 million Africans. The initiative primarily targets rural communities that are not connected to the electricity and also seeks to find ways to bring costs down to make power supply more affordable. Four years later, the group is operating in over 18 countries in Africa.
Akon Crypto City
Last summer, Akon announced that he was building a new futuristic ‘Crypto city,’ in Senegal, which will trade exclusively in his own digital cash currency called AKoin. The futuristic city will be built on 2,000 acres of land that was gifted to him by Macky Sall, the president of Senegal, and is within 5 minutes of the newly built international airport, and also a short drive from the capital city Dakar.
