This startup sold to investors, the idea of building a nation afresh on the blockchain. Now they have an Afrocentric app everyone can use.

Afropolitan, an ambition to build a digital nation on the internet, has launched Afropass, a product that connects Africans across the world through curated Afro-centric experiences. Afropass is an app that lists concerts, tours and trips, African cuisines, and other “authentic experiences” that immerses adopters into the culture of the world’s fastest-growing continent. However, the company’s founder, Eche Emole, maintains that the app’s utility will extend beyond the ticket platform feel it has today, to provide a broader suite of services and experiences that powers the internet-native digital nation.

“Afropass is the only ticket…to experience the best that Africa and the diaspora have to offer. It is a VIP passport to experience premium African food, music, and events globally,” writes the product’s creators. Afropass, in curating premium African experiences for a global audience, is plugging itself into the growing global demand for Afrocentric ideas, evidenced by the surging demand for the continent's music and movies. While the Nollywood release, BlackBook, retains its spot on Netflix's global top 10, African artists continue to record more nominations for global categories at the Grammys.

Meanwhile, Emole and his team have grand ideas for Afropass beyond a ticketing platform with a global appeal. They want to make Afropass the portal to Afropolitan, the main idea of an internet-native country. This means users can, through Afropass, become citizens of Afropolitan—a status that will provide them with benefits such as digital identities and e-residency in the future. Afropass is the second stage of the Afropolitan dream, which was kickstarted by selling NFT-backed citizenship to 500 founding members.

Afropass will evolve to be a crypto-powered super app that allows its members to access events, wallets, DAOs, cross-border payments, and facilitate remittances, Emole said in a NODO interview on Monday.

Emole, who spent the last decade building communities across the diaspora, says Afropass is on a mission to create economic opportunities between Africans and the diaspora. America’s population comprises over 46 million people of African descent, who contribute over $1.6 trillion to the US economy. This trend is similar in countries like the UK, where countries such as Nigeria and South Africa have topped migration statistics. These diasporans, with their relatively high economic advantage, can inject Africa and Afrocentric projects with liquidity, resources, and global networks, while connecting to the rich cultural heritage that the continent continues to export. Afropass hopes to coordinate this handshake.

Afropolitans, as the citizens of this new nation are called, will be pooled by culture, but Emole believes real-life solutions are how the digital nation will be sustained. “When Afropass matures into the super app we envision, our members will use their digital IDs to access capital, register their businesses, and access our full suite of financial services,” he said.

Afropass’ first event will be hosted in Atlanta on November 12 and will be headlined by BET Award-winning rapper, MI Abaga.