Trust Graphic Novel
Trust is a graphic novel and motion comic that tells the story of one woman’s quest to use blockchain to protect her community from cultural and ecological destruction
Goals
To educate 1 million African youth about the potential for blockchain to transform their communities.
- Develop 100 page graphic novel (funded & in progress)
- Create full length animated motion comic
- Connect learners to further educational resources and local training programs to create more developers and entrepreneurs
Description
Trust is a transmedia project - both a graphic novel and an animated motion comic - that tells the story of one woman’s quest to use blockchain to protect her community from cultural and ecological destruction. In a partnership between Kenyan writer and illustrator Chief Nyamweya and Canadian blockchain educator and investor Anne Connelly, the project advocates the importance of an African future that embraces its rich culture and traditional knowledge, but also uses technology as a means to ensure this future is decentralised.
We will produce a 100 page graphic novel in English and Swahili, in both print and mobile-first digital formats. In order to ensure accessibility, we are giving away the digital version for free. We will also produce a 7 part animated motion comic that we are pitching to African content networks and publishing on IGTV. The story content will link the audience to additional learning resources and training opportunities from local partners to help young Africans take the next steps to becoming visionaries, innovators and architectects of their futures.
Our goal is to reach over 1 million African youth.
The teaser version of the motion comic received over 1,000 views on youtube and 16,000 on facebook with almost no promotion. We have no doubt that with the support of our partners and the power of social media, we can achieve this goal. We have already created educational partnerships with The Blockchain Academy (South Africa), Bithub Africa's Melanin Academy (Kenya), African Blockchain Institute (Rwanda), Gitcoin Kernel (USA), and Blockgeeks (Canada). We also made our first media partnership with Bitcoin.KE who will be doing a series of articles and Instagram posts in Swahili - a first for the industry.
Our project is blockchain agnostic, and is already uniting support from across the community. We have received generous financial support (over $50K) from Algorand Foundation, Cardano Foundation, Consensys Grants, Interchain Foundation and Conflux Network - enough to produce the full graphic novel. We are now raising an additional $60,500 to produce the motion comic.
Stellar’s goal is to unlock the world’s economic potential together. Stellar is an integral part of the blockchain ecosystem, and is an organization that future developers should be introduced to early on in their learning journeys. By ensuring that young Africans learn about blockchain in an accessible and culturally relevant way, we can support the next generation of dreamers and builders to learn about the potential of blockchain to create radically different futures.
Our Team
Chief Nyamweya is a Kenyan writer and illustrator best known for his masterfully ink-illustrated Graphic Novels. His works address history, science and most recently, the future of education in his latest book Art of Unlearning (2018) which draws on his experiences as a student of Singularity University in Silicon Valley. Chief is the co-founder of Freehand Studios, an African visual arts and education company that creates socially impactful content and experiences.
In 2015, Chief was curator of 'Ink and Pixels - A history of graphic art in Kenya' exhibition in conjunction with the Goethe Institute which described him as “an autodidact who borrows from a wide palette of influences and an expansive suite of mediums." Chief is a lawyer and chartered accountant by training and recently listed on Business Daily Africa’s 2019 list of ‘Top 40 under 40 Men’.
Anne Connelly is passionate about harnessing blockchain technology to transform the lives of people in developing countries. Anne is Faculty at Singularity University, teaching global leaders how exponential technologies can solve problems that impact over a billion people. She has been an active part of the global blockchain community since 2012 as an entrepreneur, investor and educator. She previously ran Amply, a blockchain for social impact company in South Africa.
In her early career, Anne worked with Doctors Without Borders Canada in Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and served on their board of directors. She has a BScH from Queen’s University, an MBA from McMaster University, and a Certificate in Disruptive Strategy from Harvard Business School. She was honoured as one of the Fifty Most Inspirational Women in Technology in Canada.
Links
Motion Comic Teaser
Budget
Website
Anne's TEDx Talk
Chief's TEDx Talk
