What is Magma?

Magma Founder Residency is a two-week in-person residency organized by Borderless Africa for individuals building on-chain and focused on African users, and setting up in the African market.

The first of its kind, Magma offers a peer-to-peer coordination point for founders, backed with global support.

This is the first cohort, and it is to be held at a mountain reserve in Kenya for twelve days. It is to last from the 3rd to the 15th of March 2024. Applications end today, the 21st of January, 2024!

Who can apply to Magma?

Applicants have to be under these categories;

Founders who have live applications on-chain/yet to be on-chain.
Talented individuals who want to build financial and economic tools/services for the African market.
Talented and interested persons, technical and non-technical, who are yet to build.

Twenty-five applicants are to be chosen, who are to be tutored by ten mentors from various parts of the world.

Why Should You Apply for Magma’s Residency Program?

First of all, Magma is free! Accommodation, food, and program costs will be provided for all accepted participants. Interested individuals are only required to cover their travel costs.

Twenty-five applicants are to be chosen, who are to be tutored by ten mentors from various parts of the world. Accepted applicants get to learn from invited speakers, their tutors, and each other while engaging in meaningful workshops, fireside chats, and being part of a strong community. The program also has tremendous global support.

According to Borderless Africa’s founder, Yoseph Ayele, “A billion+ Africans have massive economic and financial needs still unmet, everything from basic financial services (savings, payments, credit, insurance, etc) to identity, reputation, and trust.

Africans are flocking to crypto in masses, and the real-world use of crypto at scale is still in Africa. But the best tools specifically for the African market are yet to be built.

It's going to be tough to build all these in-house [monolithic] and make them successful across Africa which has 54 countries and 1.4 billion people who speak 2,000+ languages.

We need to coordinate better as we build more interoperable + modular applications that provide simple and user-friendly services. Web3 is uniquely positioned for composability and coordination at this scale. And Africa is at the frontier of making crypto useful for a billion+ people. 12 days together is a starting point in this direction.”

Tutors for the Residency Program

Borderless Africa has promised to “get quality and hands-on support from global experts who live and breathe the mechanics of making decentralization work.

Joining Magma are security experts who spend their time finding critical vulnerabilities in major protocols and making them more robust. Zero Knowledge Proofs and smart contract researchers, product builders from some of the top protocols in the space, tokenecononmics designers who worked on Aave, ENS, and Gitcoin, DAO experimenters, and more.

Leading Layer 2s and global protocol builders are coming along. Top-tier Web2 and Web3 founders are joining for open discussions on the founder journey.”

What to Expect During Magma’s Residency Program?

Magma’s residency program has a lot in store. Straight from the stables of Borderless Africa, “it is built for super-busy operators in Africa and beyond. The 12 days are a mix of structured and ample unstructured time to co-create together. Here is what is in store:

Peer-to-peer workshops, product demos, feedback sessions, and roundtables, all led by the founders joining.
Workshops, office hours, and fireside chats with global mentors.
4 hours a day of heads-down work time, calls, and one-on-one meetings with other participants.
Community building so we can support each other beyond Magma.

It's incredibly ridiculous how most African builders can't join crypto events globally because they can't get visas. So we are bringing hand-picked folks to come to the continent and offer real value to our builders.

It's a two-way street of learning as we all figure out the real-world functionality of decentralization tools, and the biggest value here is the relationships that get forged. ”

Magma’s Unique Vision

Borderless Africa’s founder, Mr. Yoseph Ayele, revealed that Magma was inspired by Ycombinator and that most of its activities and borrowed from them. He however stated that Magma is free and does not require equity for participation.

With his experience in building the Edmund Hillary Fellowship for eight years, and the ripple effects gotten from networking cohort-based communities, he aims to get the same results from Magma.

It’s Raining Applications!

This is Magma’s first cohort, and they have plans to hold it twice a year to benefit all founders interested in networking and gaining more knowledge.

Enough talk now, hurry and apply here!