The Algorand Foundation, whose mission is to grow the ecosystem of Algorand, the carbon-negative Layer 1 blockchain invented by Turing Award winner and MIT professor Silvio Micali, is proud to support the launch of TRUST, a transmedia project featuring a graphic novel, motion comic, and NFT collection. Created by Chief Nyamweya, Anne Connelly and Sarah Mallia, the Algorand Foundation grant-supported project is being distributed worldwide by Freehand Studios for free through download on the TRUST Website.
Set in an alternative African nation, TRUST is the story of Moraa, a young activist who with the help of her community, uses the power of blockchain technology to protect their homeland from cultural and ecological destruction. Along their journey, they learn about the power of blockchain to organize, fundraise and transform their future.
“TRUST is a creative exploration of the global applications of blockchain technology and the power it holds to transform and empower communities,” said Dr. Hugo Krawczyk, Algorand Foundation’s principal researcher and head of the ACE Programme. “We are proud to support an initiative that aligns with Algorand Foundation’s core values of using blockchain to build equitable and inclusive futures.”
Since its inception in 2019, TRUST has partnered with blockchain education providers from Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa, as well as several blockchain media outlets. These partnerships have led to overwhelming support from the blockchain community across Africa and globally.
“Young Africans are hungry for a vision of an African future rooted in trust, sustainability and freedom from unaccountable state power. It is the desire to satisfy this hunger with a story of a practicable grassroots alternative that led us to create this transmedia project called ‘TRUST’,” said Chief Nyamweya, the co-founder of Freehand Studios. “We wanted to use the power of storytelling to speak to readers and viewers about blockchain technology, inspiring them to see a decentralized future rooted in justice and ecological sustainability.”
Freehand Studios, an African digital arts and social impact studio, aims to inspire young Africans to engage in the positive transformation of their societies. TRUST contributed to this vision by providing global citizens with access to inspiring and culturally relevant stories that allow them to reimagine their own futures.
ALGORAND FOUNDATION
The Algorand blockchain — designed by MIT professor and Turing Award winning cryptographer Silvio Micali — is capable of delivering on the promise of a borderless global economy. It achieves transaction throughputs at the speed of traditional finance, with immediate finality and near zero transaction costs, and without a second of downtime since it went live in June 2019.Its carbon-neutral platform and unique pure proof-of-stake consensus mechanism solves for the “blockchain trilemma” by achieving both security and scalability on a decentralized protocol.
The Algorand Foundation is dedicated to helping fulfill the global promise of the Algorand blockchain by taking responsibility for its sound monetary supply economics, decentralized governance, and healthy and prosperous open-source ecosystem. For more information, visit https://algorand.foundation
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chief Nyamweya is an author, visual artist and co-founder of Freehand Movement: an African digital arts and social impact studio. His work fuses storytelling, Illustration and animation to create visions of an alternative African future. Chief was originally trained as a lawyer and chartered accountant before taking the unlikely decision to pursue a career as an artist. In 2016, he was awarded a scholarship to attend Singularity University in San Francisco and in 2019, he was listed among the Business Daily Africa’s top 40 under 40 Men. The 36 year old father of two has since published a graphic novel Art of Unlearning (2019), subtitled ‘how to discover your passion and share it’, as well as directed several animations such as Big Brother is Coming to the Farm which explores the dark side of the digitization of food production and Uli and Tata’s African Nursery Rhymes a children’s animated series. His latest project, a trans media story called Trust (2022) set in a fictional African nation he calls Wahengaland, is set to be released in September 2022.
Anne Connelly has been a leader in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector since 2012. She is Faculty at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, where she teaches blockchain-based business models for social impact. She also teaches with Singularity Group and Realm Academy, a metaverse school.
She is the co-author of “Bitcoin and the Future of Fundraising”, a guide for charities on crypto donations, and the co-author of ‘Trust’, a graphic novel that teaches young Africans about blockchain. She is certified from the Institute of Corporate Directors and sits as a steward on the Gitcoin DAO, a decentralized organization that support the creation of public goods.
Anne previously worked with Doctors Without Borders as a field worker in Central African Republic and the DR Congo. She has a Bachelor of Life Sciences from Queen’s University, an MBA from McMaster University, and is certified in Strategic Disruption from Harvard Business School. She was honoured as one of CBC’s 12 Young Leaders Changing Canada and one of the Fifty Most Inspirational Women in Technology in Canada.
She previously worked with Doctors Without Borders Canada in Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and currently serves on their board of directors. Anne has a Bachelor of Life Sciences from Queen’s University, an MBA from McMaster University, and a Fintech Certificate from MIT. She was honoured as one of CBC’s 12 Young Leaders Changing Canada and one of the Fifty Most Inspirational Women in Technology in Canada.
Animation Team: Sarah Mallia, Tim Mumali, Manu Akatsa
For a free copy of the graphic novel, visit https://www.trustgraphicnovel.com/book
For more information, visit www.trustgraphicnovel.com
