Codeaku Startup: First Egyptian Blockchain school

CAIRO -10 September 2018: Although Blockchain technology is seen as the next generation of the internet with endless possibilities and applications, many Egyptians still know nothing about this new breakthrough technology. Therefore, Codeaku first Blockchain school is established with a target to raise awareness of the Blockchain technology and bring coding to everybody in Egypt.

“Codeaku is simply a coding school. We believe in the power of coding and this is why we have built our programs to serve non-techies before techies. We aim at empowering all skilled Egyptian youth not just to land a decent or high paying job but to build a better country and a better economy, cause only through technology can we do that,” Hassan Ali, the founder of Codeaku told Egypt Today.

Ali was inspired to build the first Blockchain School in Egypt based on his experience on learning coding. “I was interested in coding and decided to start my learning path here in Egypt. I was amazed by the research outcomes; there wasn’t any offline coding school in Egypt that tackles emerging techs coding. My other option was online courses, but it didn’t work this time especially that I had zero tech background then,” he said.



Hassan Ali, Founder of Codeaku delivers a talk at Machine Learning meetup, arranged with IBM

Codeaku has got accepted at Y Combinator Startup School among a few others out of the 15,000 applied startups; Y Combinator is the Silicon Valley-based accelerator behind Dropbox and Airbnb. Moreover, they signed contract with Government Blockchain Association and started a Local Chapter in Cairo. Lately, Codeaku started a series of meet ups with IBM and WUZZUF to raise the awareness of emerging technology.


Codeaku arranges Blockchain meetup at Banque Misr with IBM

Currently, Codeaku is starting Egypt’s first Blockchain Club at October 6 University. Also, its team is going to hold a couple of meet ups with iHub in October and start wave 2 of Intro to computer science course during the upcoming days.

Blockchain is important because within the next decade, it will have revolutionized the way of dealing with money and trade. Blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted third party to negotiate or moderate transaction, they can happen peer-to-peer. For example, musicians could post their songs on a blockchain application and specify how they want their song to be used and it would be free to the public directly, without a large corporation eating up their revenue. One person could transfer money from their ‘account’ to their friend’s without having to go through a bank. The World Economic Forum predicted that by 2025, 10% of global GDP will be stored in blockchain technology, according to a report published in September 2015.

Ali advised entrepreneurs to start discovering the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Egypt. “I decided to start my own startup because I faced a problem that so many others were facing, and a lot were unaware of, and I wanted to help myself and them. I can’t call it a decision, I had a vision in mind and started working toward it till now,” he said.

Anything in the world of technology takes time to make its way to consumer acceptance. And so it is with blockchain. There is no doubt that major challenges still need to be overcome but we are at the verge of a great revolution, let’s get to work and make it happen!