By Alkali Amana
What most individuals envision when they think of blockchain is the affiliation of cryptocurrencies with the technology, but for Coronet Blockchain, Shadrack and Pretty Kubyane (its cofounders) envision an innovative approach to solving Africa’s market and supply chain issues using solutions that will enhance the process of tracking and managing commodities while significantly improving and managing the value of the businesses behind such commodities.
Located in Sandton, South Africa, Coronet’s innovative approach is defined with the ability to provide services that carefully enable the traceability and authentication of products from their point of origin to their point of consumption, and in the process, making the supply chain for such product efficient, transparent and safe. A concise description of Coronet’s venture is the reference to it being an end-to-end digital supply chain solution with a vision to evolve Africa’s marketable commodities from hand to mouth into a sustainable bankable economy using Blockchain Technology. This brings to focus the potential resident in Coronet’s approach to scaling and improving the value of African businesses from being ordinary to being successful operations running into millions, which has been one of the focus and delivery points of the Blockchain service supplier. From inception, Coronet’s ability to scale businesses showed when the venture took on an informal business selling human hair extensions possessing a value of $500 at the time, and through the systematic application of blockchain to track and implement solutions, scaled it to a $2 million business – leading to different brands to demand the same success as the hair extensions business at scale.
With its digital infrastructure built on IBM Blockchain, Coronet offers 100 percent tracking of commodities from source to consumer. Virtually innovative, through its B2B2C e-commerce platform capabilities, vetted suppliers i.e. international manufacturers can sell their products such as quality authenticated human hair extensions, aftercare products, and salon equipment to 500,000 African salons that make up the addressable market. Effectively, salons can place orders from international manufacturers, manage client bookings, manage inventory, link CRM and payroll systems, and seamlessly collect payments including tips for their stylists digitally. Broadly, using this one-stop approach in its system, the venture achieves the objective of providing users and businesses with a centralized conveyor to running a smooth entrepreneurial adventure, enabling even individuals with basic skills to build bankable businesses. In providing solutions through its technology, Coronet Blockchain avails the digital infrastructure necessary to bring about equitable transactions where African SMEs and global corporates intersect within a global trade environment: levelling the play-field, to ensure industry transformation and Africa’s emerging market benefits which transit seamlessly into the current structure of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Coronet’s journey incorporates the AfCFTA idea with a close relationship to the ecosystems building what is potentially the world’s biggest market, as, since 2017, the venture has had a front-row seat on the ratification of the agreement, following through to create an implementation structure in its system to capture Africa’s future.
The combined duo of a fine couple, Shadrack and Pretty Kubyane, who are both Blockchain Technology enthusiasts, work hand in hand as co-founders to lead the Blockchain disruption and supply solutions offered by Coronet as a venture while incorporating in its employment structure the use of project managers, Design thinkers, Blockchain architect/experts, Coders/Designers, and an efficient customer service team. The couple leads the venture’s capacity to scale with an assignment to improve lives and not just pursue profitability, given the sense of communal belonging instilled in both Shadrack and Pretty since an early age in life coming from a village upbringing. Currently pushing through in a quest to educate African business environments on the need to use blockchain and also to announce and stamp the innovative solutions necessary to actualize a safe and original marketplace for the African terrain, Coronet’s expansive reach across the continent is gainfully structured in a process which is carefully established with South Africa as a base, and its extension reaching to African countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Ghana. A recent tour of East Africa proves the drive of the team to highly excel in the provision of quality service and in the creation of the awareness necessary to build, scale and improve African markets.
Essentially, in the wake of a time when Blockchain is taking over the sphere of technology, Coronet is actively carving out a niche and defining the market space in Africa in the advent of its venture and activities, and with the passionate leadership of Shadrack and Pretty Kubyane, it remains to applaud the digital infrastructure revolution Coronet is leading into the African continent. African investments and governments need to look into this innovation which is apt for the African clime to respond to global changes and challenge the existing status quo without tracking abilities or immense scalable value.
