On Thursday December 16, 2021, Twitter’s founder and former Chief Executive, Jack Dorsey, announced via the microblogging platform that he had appointed four young Africans to serve as board members of the Bitcoin Trust Fund.
The appointees are: Carla Kirk-Cohen from South Africa, Abubakar Nur Khalil from Nigeria, Obi Nwosu from Nigeria and Ojoma Ochai also from Nigeria.
Dorsey described them as “inspirational”, noting that it would now be their collective responsibility to map out the operating principles that will define how the Bitcoin Trust Fund would be administered.
“Announcing the Bitcoin Trust Board: Carla Kirk-Cohen, Abubakar Nur Khalil, Obi Nwosu and Ojoma Ochai! I’m so grateful for you all and so inspired… They’ll now work towards defining the operating principles as they think about how to best distribute the 500 bitcoin towards development efforts,” Dorsey wrote.
Recall that Jack Dorsey had surprisingly stepped down as Twitter CEO back in November this year. But prior to his resignation, he announced in February the launch of the Bitcoin Trust Fund in partnership with American rap superstar and billionaire Shawn Carter, also known as Jay Z. The Bitcoin Trust Fund has a total of 500 BTC which is currently worth about $24.3 million, according to exchange rates obtained from ex-rate.com.
Business Insider Africa understands that the aim of the endowment is to facilitate the development of bitcoin in Africa and India, with the ultimate aim of making the crypto coin the “internet’s currency”.
So, who are these newly appointed board members that will be managing the trust fund?
Do note that the four Africans were selected from a total of 7,000 individuals who applied to be considered for the job. So, they must really be “inspirational” as Jack said. We looked up their resumes to see what makes them special, as you can see below.
- Carla Kirk-Cohen:Â This South African software engineer previously worked for Luno, one of the largest crypto exchange in Africa. She currently works for Lightning Labs, according to information available on her LinkedIn page.
- Ojoma Ochai:Â She is a Nigerian national and currently holds the position of Managing Partner (overseeing creative economy practice) at Lagos-based Co-Creation Hub. She previously worked with the British Council and other notable organisations.
- Obi Nwosu:Â Also a Nigerian national, Nwosu co-founded a serd-level cryptocurrency startup called Coinfloor. Information obtained from Crunchbase show that the startup has raised a total of $300,000 in funding rounds from three investors.
- Abubakar Nur Khalil: A Nigerian national, he serves as the Chief Technology Officer Recursive Capital, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is also a bitcoin core contributor, and had recently received $50,000 in BTC from Human Rights Foundation for his work on Bitcoin wallet software.
