In this episode I talk with Alakanani Itireleng, who founded the Satoshicentre in Botswana in 2014 and single-handedly built a growing Bitcoin community. She is the heart and center of Bitcoin education there, even the government is relying on her consultancy. We recorded this interview in February 2020, only days before the Covid-19 lockdowns went into effect. Her greatest ambition, the organization of a Bitcoin conference in Southern Africa will not come true soon. If you like to support her work and the Satoshicentre - please do so, her Twitter handle is @bitcoinlady.
If you have a question, feel free to go to https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa6 and press the appropriate button and record your question.

"Bitcoin is for everyone, Bitcoin is the currency of love." - Alakanani Itireleng

We talk about:

How her sons illness and death lead to the first meetup
The internet as "white people's problem"
The high unemployment rate in Botswana
The cost of internet connections
Ponzi schemes and how they are disturbing bitcoin adoption
Bitcoin usecases and regulation in Botswana
Exchanging the local currency Pula to Bitcoin
African countries on the forefront of adoption
Her opinion about Libra and Lightning
Mobile Money in Botswana
The Future of Bitcoin in Botswana

Other relevant episodes:
Part 1 Zimbabwe: Ideal Conditions for Bitcoin?
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa1/

Part 2 Zimbabwe: Living in a Multi-Currency World
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa2/

Part 3: Using Bitcoin in Zimbabwe
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa3/

Part 4: If Bitcoin Works in Zimbabwe, It Works Everywhere
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa4/

Part 5: Afriblocks a Pan-African Network for Remote Jobs & Answering Questions
https://bitcoinundco.com/en/africa5/

This episode is sponsored by https://localbitcoins.com/ a person-to-person bitcoin trading site, Coinfinity and the Card Wallet https://www.cardwallet.com/anita, SHIFT Cryptosecurity, manufacturer of the hardware wallet BitBox02 https://shiftcrypto.ch/bitbox02/, The What Bitcoin Did podcast https://whatbitcoindid.com/ and many thanks to several unknown private donors, who sent me Satoshis over the Lightning Network.

This special is edited by CoinDesk’s Podcasts Editor Adam B. Levine and published first on the CoinDesk Podcast Network. Thank you very much for supporting the Bitcoin in Africa series with your work.

Thanks goes also out to stakwork.com - stakwork is a great project that brings bitcoin into the world through earning. One can do microjobs on stakwork, earning Satoshis and cash them out without even having an understanding about the lightning network or bitcoin. I think we need more projects like that to spread the usage of bitcoin around the world.

Thank you also to GoTenna https://gotenna.com/, for donating several GoTenna devices to set up a mesh network in Zimbabwe and to Team Satoshi https://teamsatoshi.org/, the decentralized sports team for supporting my work.