The Built With Bitcoin Foundation (BWB) has opened a new Bitcoin Technology Center in Ejisu, Ghana, a city in Greater Kumasi, as a legacy for the inaugural Africa Bitcoin Conference. The center will be run by Ghanians, for Ghanians, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
BWB Founders Ray Youssef and Yusuf Nessary plan to reveal the campus on Thursday December 8, 2022, with a tour attended by various members of the international Bitcoin community.
The main goal of the Bitcoin Technology Center, according to the press release, “is to equip the local community with skills and knowledge within the finance and technology industries — it’s also intended to build community and foster a safe environment to learn.”
Support for the facility comes from the Edwinase community, Blockchain Foundation Africa, and the Bitcoin community. Eight employees will work there, including administrators and lecturers.
The release detailed some of the various subjects to be taught at the center, including, “Financial literacy: understanding money,” “Introduction to Bitcoin,” “Entrepreneurship,” “Introduction to computers” and “Introduction to coding.”
The facility will be free to access and the center aims to educate and train approximately 400 people in the first year. In addition to the education and training provided, the site will serve as a location for monthly meetups.
BWB is “a humanitarian organization devoted to creating equitable opportunity by providing clean water, access to quality education, sustainable farming, and humanitarian support—all powered by Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies,” according to the foundation’s website.
Built With Bitcoin has completed several humanitarian projects before, including an education center in South Africa in collaboration with Bitcoin Ekasi, a ferry for a school in El Salvador that had no access prior to that and a well project in Nigeria that provided over 1,000 villagers with access to clean water.
On the importance of providing education access to the community, Nessary stated, “The bedrock of any community is education — whether that be financial, health, agriculture and so on. Education is also a key to protecting vulnerable communities from bad actors and teaching people how Bitcoin can support them and their families through entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, knowledge and social empowerment.”