Akon Activates Africa

6 REAL-LEADERS.COM / SUMMER 2019 05 AKON CRYPTO CITY The best way to penetrate Africa’s currency market is to start a city of our own. Technological growth through the internet is exponential. We’ll establish Akoin there, and quickly, but sustainably, expand. We are currently laying the groundwork to build a master- planned community, Akon City, a first-of- its-kind, 100-percent- crypto-based city with Akoin at the center of transactional life. We’re developing this futuristic city within 15 minutes of the new international airport, close to the coast, and a short drive from Dakar. Akon Cryptocity blends leading Smart City planning designs with a blank canvas for cryptonizing our daily human and business exchanges and inventing a radical new way of existence. “IF YOU GET TO A POINT WHERE YOU’VE GOT MONEY TO INVEST, YOU GOTTA INVEST IN SOMETHING RELATED TO A NATURAL RESOURCE BECAUSE THAT’S GONNA BE HERE FOREVER - NOT SOMETHING THAT’S GONNA WEAR OUT.” — AKON WATCH Our interview with Akon on Facebook: @RealLeadersMagazine 04 AKONON LEADERSHIP I can’t do all of this by myself. To bring Akoin to life, I’ve made sure I have a group of people behind me who believe in the vision, have the skill sets, and are empowered to drive the company forward. When I think of leadership at its best, it’s bringing the best people around you and letting them run while learning from each other in the process, and leveling the whole thing up. Jon Karas, Akoin president, leads the company and vision while building a world-class team of individuals who also believe in our mission. Lynn Liss, our COO, executes on that vision and keeps the train going; she’s our hammer. As we grow, I look to and empower my team to bring together the right star individuals to make this dream for Akoin into a reality. That’s exactly what we’re doing. 06 PARTNERSHIP Our vision wouldn’t be possible without our amazing partners and DApps that provide these much-needed tools and services through our ecosystem, and who trade in and out of our Akoin currency to make that happen. We work with each partner to configure their solutions so they fit for the needs of Africa, and ultimately, into other rising economies. I’m excited to share a few of our partners here. Our first partnership is with Lottery. com (https://sto.lottery.com )who is the leader in providing charitable sweepstakes with a focus on achieving a social impact. Instead of one person gaining a huge sum of money, Lottery.com is building a micro-many model with us, where many people win small amounts of money or entrepreneurial building tools. This will be huge in Africa, where a small amount of resource can activate huge change. We’ll be launching our first programwith them over the next fewmonths, starting in Nigeria. Another example is our partnership with BitMinutes, which empowers people to do more with their mobile cell phone minutes. Prepaid minutes in Africa is as good as money. People use it to pay their bills, make daily transactions, etc. Through our partnership with BitMinutes, (www.BitMinutes.com ) people will exchange Akoin into prepaid minutes or into the local fiat at the corner market or local Bank/ATM. This was a big thing for us, as BitMinutes has a growing corner market and financial institution footprint in Africa to ensure there is that local currency exchange option. People will also use use those prepaid cell phone minutes as collateral to take out a micro-loan or become a micro-lender themselves in their local market. We see a huge opportunity there for billions of unbanked consumers. Other critical services such as healthcare will be offered through partnerships such as with KinectHub, (www.KinectHub. com) who is using blockchain technology to digitize health records, letting users earn cryptocurrency for sharing their health information and driving healthcare transformation in countries that need