## Name of Project / DAO / Company
Usiku Games - Kenya - Blockchain Gaming For Good in Africa
## Application type
Product Launch & Investment
- P2E Social Good Gaming platform - with proceeds going towards education & healthcare funding for youth in Africa
## Proposal overview
THE COMPANY:
As a social impact game developer in Kenya, and one of the largest game studios in Africa - Usiku Games have a 3yr history of publishing over 30 games addressing important social challenges including gender based violence, climate change and healthcare.
THE PROBLEM:
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Aside from Sierra Leone, Sudan and Liberia; Kenya has the lowest gross savings rate in Africa. It is less than half the rate of personal savings in Nigeria, South Africa or the United States. This places Kenyans at substantial risk of future calamities, and decreases their economic mobility.
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Today’s youth will turn a deaf ear to traditional NGO / Gov’t messaging, and have been very difficult to reach with effective educational content around personal financial planning, disaster preparedness and long-term savings.
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While the youth are more receptive to content conveyed through “serious games”, local game development studios have struggled economically, because of the challenges around monetizing games in the African environment.
PROBLEM / OPPORTUNITY SIZE:
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There are over 350 million connect smartphones in Sub-Saharan Africa, more than all those in the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. Pre-covid activations were growing at 20% CAGR in Africa, vs just 2% in America.
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The median age in Kenya today is 20 yrs. Over 80% of the country’s 50 million population is less than 35yrs old.
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Africa has the fastest growing middle class in the world.
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Estimates are that there will be more than 680 million internet connected smartphones in Africa by 2030
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Kenya’s gross savings for 2019 was just USD$152 per capita (just 32% of the Nigeria’s rate, despite Kenya’s GDP per capita being 87% of Nigeria’s)
We intend to prove the case for blockchain based #GamingForGood in Kenya first,
and then scale the solution to the hundreds of millions of youth with smartphones across Africa.
OUR SOLUTION:
We are publishing a collection of 15+ FUN Free-to-play mobile casual games. Each game has been designed to include player progressions which will allow the unlocking of the stable coins. These release moments relate to the completion of a level, beating a certain villain, or capturing collectibles. The players accumulate these coins in their player wallet, and when ready can cash them out for FIAT paid to socially beneficial partners including: health insurance, educational school fees & long-term savings accounts. The funds are transferred directly to the savings accounts avoiding the risk of fraud or diversion.
The pool of utility stable coins will be funded through the sale of UsikuKoins (USK) on DEX’s through an IDO and subsequent drops as the platform expands to new countries. 50% of the sale funds go directly towards minting new stable coins, which in turn go to the youth’s education and healthcare. The remaining 50% goes towards product development and operating costs of the platform.
The full model can be seen here:
THE TEAM:
Our team of 25 Kenyan digital natives have reached millions of youth across the continent with our “Made in Africa, for Africa” innovative new content. The team includes award winning game designers, illustrators, animators, sound engineers, writers, developers and of course blockchain engineers.
Some Key members of the team:
Jay Shapiro - Founder / CEO - LinkedIN: /in/jayshapiro
Jake Manion - Creative Director - LinkedIN: /in/jakemanion
Denis Odera - Project Manager - LinkedIN: /in/denis-odera-12917b115
Emanuel Kamusinga - Art Director - LinkedIN: /in/emanuelkamusinga
PROJECT STAGE:
We have 15 mobile casual games that are built and live already. The games were previously launched without the P2E elements. We are now upgrading each game to include the player stable coin wallet. Our plan is to use a portion of the funds raised to increase the portfolio to more than 30 P2E mobile games.
The project is not currently live on Harmony or any other chain yet, although we are big Harmony fans and working through the implementation details currently.
ACTIVE USERS:
The platform is not live yet, so we do not have DAU numbers yet, however our non-P2E games with almost no marketing had 1,000+ daily game starts. SportPesa, the mobile sportsbetting platform in Kenya in 2019 (before they were shutdown by the gov’t for tax evasion) had 1 million DAU’s playing 3x daily, in Kenya alone.
THE ASK:
We are seeking funding for this project in two tranches, both made on-chain via tokens.
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Product Launch - USD$100k - Equity free incubation funding in order to support the completion of the project engineer, including integrating Harmony’s cross-chain interoperability, as well as IP / Legal / Regulatory advice pre-launch.
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Long-term Investment - USD$1m over 2 years - invested through the purchase of private tranche USK tokens, with 50% of the funds going towards operation and expansion of the platform, and 50% going directly into the long-term savings accounts of African youth. The fully-liquid USK tokens purchased are intended to increase in value, thereby increasing the future potential impact for Harmony to make further project investments elsewhere.
JUSTIFICATION
This project is a unique funding investment in a few different ways:
1) Total Alignment with the Harmony Mission - “To scale trust for billions of people and create a radically fair economy” is exactly what we are trying to do with this platform. We are hoping to help the hundreds of millions of online youth in Africa, to begin financially saving to secure their futures via a Harmony powered platform.
2) Experienced Team - Although this platform is new to the market, it is being created by a robust existing studio, with 15 proven existing games, created by one of the most senior / experienced teams on the continent.
3) Not another Axie - Play to Earn is getting a bad rap in many circles due to Axie Infinity and their clones. Unlike that model, we are not trying to transform the nature of work, we’re trying to help youth build better habits towards long-term preparedness and savings. Our games are fun, casual games that you play while sitting in traffic on your way to work, not instead of work.
METRICS OF SUCCESS:
As an organization, we regularly create grant funded behavior change programs for major NGO’s and gov’t development agencies. M&E and Data are in our DNA. We have detailed dashboards for each of our games constantly evaluating:
- gameplay volume usage
- player satisfaction and repeat play habits
- pre & post testing of attitudes and education dispositions
For this platform we will measure success primarily through:
- total funds redistributed from crypto wallets into youth’s health/education savings accounts
- total number of youth with new savings accounts who had none before
- total number of hours spent playing our non-violent, gender inclusive, African origin games
- value increase of the public USK tokens
EXTERNAL LINKS:
Usiku Games - existing games: www.Usiku.Games
Game Trailer - SIMburu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N2vqtjM2RU
Blockchain Gaming Concept Note - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dQV0m7XoomtYIoGUG8VCRTTwyLnaebZf/view?usp=sharing