Akon, the renowned rapper and entrepreneur, says there has been significant progress towards his dream of building a super-futuristic city in Africa that will have its foundations in cryptocurrency and green-energy.
Phase one of the construction project, which will take place in the West African state of Senegal, is now believed to begin by 2023 and be finished by 2029. In order to further this project, Akon has already struck deals with Senegal President Macky Sall and with engineering firm KE International which has received a new $6 billion to advance the project. This $6 billion sits on top of the $4 billion the firm had already raised, leaving a total fund of $10 billion.
The brand new city will have high-quality roads, homes, hotels, its own police service, and a waste-management facility. It will be powered by solar-energy.
Solar-energy is something close to Akon's heart. Akon launched the project 'Akon Lighting Africa' in 2014 with the goal of bringing low-cost or free electricity to underprivileged people on the continent. The project took place as part of a public-private partnership and has now supplied solar-energy facilities in 16 African countries including, Guinea, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. To date, it is believed that almost 30 million people in Africa get their energy from Akon facilities. The fact that individuals are receiving cheap energy is good in itself, but the fact that this energy is also renewable and environmentally friendly only adds to its positive impact.
A great watch for those that haven't seen it yet. @Akon outlines the steps that have gone into getting #AkonCity off the ground and into construction.$AKN will be the main currency of Akon City. https://t.co/5BNoiEBO3M
— Akoin.io (@AkoinOfficial) February 11, 2021
One thing that is really raising eyebrows regarding Akon's new super-city is the economic basis upon which it will run, namely cryptocurrency. Built upon 'Akoin', which will run on the Stellar Blockchain, the entrepreneur believes that the new financial technology will result in the city overcoming many of the problems that blight both Senegal and the wider African continent, in particular corruption and financial instability.
The reason cryptocurrency is so useful in fighting corruption is because individuals can see who exchanged what currency with whom, therefore making all transactions accountable and traceable. It also means that issues such as inflation, nominally created by governments printing excessive amounts of money, are also avoided as there is only a limited amount of coins in circulation at any one time.
Akon has said that he was inspired to develop the city in part due to the fictional city 'Wakanda', which appears in the hit-move Black Panther. He told TMZ:
"This movie literally made an idea of what Africa could really be. It's just ironic that I was already working on this before the movie came out, but it's something that helped me a lot when I was trying to explain to explain to people what I was trying to do."
It is believed that if the Akon-city project is successful, it may be replicated across the African continent.
[h/t: The Mind Unleashed]
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