The government of Ethiopia has partnered with blockchain research and development firm IOHK to explore the applications of blockchain technology in the country.

Ethiopia is exploring blockchain potential in the supply chain traceability for coffee, its largest export, among other agricultural technology applications. In collaboration with the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology, IOHK will work with ministers, entrepreneurs, and startup companies to examine blockchain applications that can benefit the country.

“The Ministry of Science and Technology and IOHK are collaborating in researching an area of application to use their blockchain platform Cardano to be built upon by Ethiopian developers,” Ethiopia’s Minister of Science and Technology, Dr.Ing Mr Getahun Mekuria, said.

According to the official release, IOHK will offer free courses to up to 100 local developers in Haskell, a programming language used for mission-critical applications and blockchain development. The first group of students will be women. These courses will be taught by IOHK’s development team in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa and by researchers in IOHK’s Blockchain Research Lab at the University of Edinburgh. IOHK said that it plans to offer the most promising graduates of the school full-time developer roles.

“We are incredibly excited to be collaborating with the Ethiopian Ministry of Science and Technology and exploring new ways to innovate, such as in the agri-tech business, and other entrepreneurship in the blockchain space,” Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK, said.

“We are also training local blockchain developers, some of which we will hire, while the rest will go on to plough their skills into the economy. The first class will be all female, and the goal is to have graduates of that class move on to create ventures in the cryptocurrency space using Cardano technology, the first venture of its kind in Africa.”

The Ethiopian Haskell course is the third time the program has run, after it was first offered in Athens, Greece in July 2017 and then in Barbados in February 2018.