Touching the lives of millions of people with Wakandi

When we first released the beta version of Wakandi in early 2019, we were inspired by how people were willing to know more about our product. Now, a year later, we are exploring new markets and opportunities and working towards various strategic partnerships. We are working hard to accomplish our aim of banking millions of unbanked people in Africa.

Here is a message from our CEO, Espen Kvelland, where he talks about what keeps him inspired to work hard and achieve his dreams.

One of my goals in life is to make a service or product that touches the lives of more than 10 million people.

I spend much of my time in Africa, where we are currently rolling out the first pilots of our solution. The pilots alone will not touch millions of people, but they will increase the quality of life for a few people. After that, it’s just a matter of scaling. Being what they call a ‘Mzungu’ (a white guy) in Swahili, I have spent a lot of time understanding the culture and problems the local population is facing. Let me tell you a story about a guy I met during one of my trips.

His dream was to start a garage and a car washing service. There was no way he could walk into a bank to get a loan. He did not even have a bank account. He told us about his journey in life and how he worked hard for getting the ends to meet. He then moved on telling us about how his life was changed when he got a loan from a Microfinance company. His first loan was about $1000 that he used for getting started. He then worked hard to make the weekly downpayment on loan running for five months. He was incredibly proud when he said he made it and took another loan. This time he could borrow a little more and invest more into his dream. When we talked to him, he had just paid the last instalment of his third loan to the Microfinance company. Now, he has 12 people working for him, collectively they earn and feed 13 families, including his own.  All thanks to his dream and the courage he had to pursue it. 

For me, this made me realise how powerful his dream was, to make the quality of life better for his 12 employees and their families, that probably affects at least 100 people. During our talks, I learned a lot. I got a lot of inspiration that fuels my dream, i.e. to touch the lives of at least 10 million people. 

With Wakandi, we are building an innovation platform. A piece of software that has the power to change the lives of millions of people. People who today are struggling. I’m proud and humbled to play a part in this big story that is about to get written.