The head of Mauritian startup, Codevigor, believes that the demand for Blockchain-based services will ultimately increase in Africa as the market opens up to new and enhanced products and services.

Suyash Sumaroo, whose company recently launched a product aimed at addressing the need of clients who seek to ensure that documents uploaded are genuine and not manipulated, believes Blockchain technology can help Mauritius and other African countries to tackle challenges including resource management, corruption and infrastructure, among others.

"For instance, the lack of bank accounts, lack of funds, and so on can be partially resolved by making use of the underlying structure of Blockchain," he says. "Problems such as corruption and resource management can also be more transparently managed by DAPPs (Decentralised Apps). Briefly, the Blockchain technology has a lot to offer and African countries should definitely be part of this technological development. The fact that many countries in Africa lack existing infrastructure (which is not the case for developed countries) can be an advantage for not only adopting the Blockchain technology but also start using it at grassroots level."

He adds: "More importantly though, we are confident that the African market will increase its demand of Blockchain-based services in the long run and eDocument.cloud aims to be among the first DMS (Document Management System) which integrates Blockchain-based features."

Sumaroo's Blockchain-based tamperproof ID system, eDocument.cloud, is a document management platform that verifies authenticity of documents and ensures that they are stored in a secure and safe environment.

Borne out of the basis that the trustless environment upon which Blockchain thrives is a very strong incentive for integration in data-centric systems, eDocument.cloud allows businesses and organisations - mainly financial institutions in the banking and non-banking sector such as insurance companies, offshore management companies, investment companies - to better manage their documents on the cloud - public or private.

Despite the concept of storing sensitive documents in the cloud being somewhat new in parts of Africa, as is the case with Blockchain, Sumaroo believes Blockchain provides a really useful and secure environment to substantially reduce associated risks.

"African countries are becoming more and more inter-connected, while adoption of smartphones is increasing every year," he states. "This clearly means that African countries are not averse to new technology. As such, Blockchain provides a real boon for the public as well as the private sector to put this technology to some real practical use, in order solve certain local problems."