Empowering African

Communities
White Paper
v1.1

© 2021 Empowa.io | contact: info@empowa.io

 Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION 3 ATTRIBUTES OF PLATFORM

Ethos 3 SUCCESS 20
Abstract 4 An Overview 20
The Empowa Mission 4 Team 20
• Glen Jordan – Co-Founder 20
THE CHALLENGE 5 • Phil Lewis – Co-Founder 21
Poverty Reduction 5 • Marie-Odile Zanders 21
Delivering Property at Scale 7 • Alke Gijrath 21
Environmental Impact 7 • Hai Vo 22
• Hung Tran 22
A SOLUTION 8 • Senny Kalidien 22
Considerations 8 Partnerships 23
Technology 8 Project Partners / Property
Digital Collectables 9 Managers / Suppliers 23
Financial Return 9 • Kwangu Kwako Limited
Beyond Financial Return 10 (KKL) – Kenya 23
• Casa Real – Mozambique 23
THE EMPOWA PLATFORM 11 • Betta.Build – South Africa 24
Platform Participants 11 • Uganda 24
• Collectors 11 Technology Partners 24
• Land Owners 12 African Blockchain Center for
• Approved Suppliers 12 Developers (ABCD) 24
• Tenants 12 Advisers and Collaborators 25
Platform Service Providers 13 • Africap LLC 25
• Project Partners 13 • Andrew Maclean 25
• Property Managers 13 • Jo Bronckers 25
• Yield Generators 13 • Larry English 25
• Fiat Payment Processors 13 • Lee Bratcher 25
Platform Features 14 • Marijn Wiersma 26
• Empowerment Cards 14 • Rupert Dehaene-Gold 26
• The Empowa Token (EMP) 15 • Wolf Bierens 26
• Web Services 15 Technology –
• Smart Contracts 15 The Cardano Blockchain 27
• Off-Chain Agreements 15 Tokenomics 29
• Platform Parameters 16 Community 29

HOW IT WORKS – ROADMAP 30

AN EXAMPLE 17 Phase 0 – Pre-Platform Housing
Development Proof of Concept 30
Phase 1 – Build to Pilot 30
Phase 2 – Open Market 31
Phase 3 –
Platform Decentralisation 31

FUNDING 32

CONCLUSION 33

DISCLAIMER 34

| White Paper © 2021 Empowa.io 2

 Ethos

“Empowerment -
the process of becoming stronger and more confident,
especially in controlling one’s life
and claiming one’s rights.”

| White Paper © 2021 Empowa.io 3

INTRODUCTION
Abstract

Empowa is a unique decentralised property development and digital collectables platform

seeking to harness the power of community to empower people mostly excluded from the
financial system. This exclusion may come about from a lack of available funding or lack of
access due to gender, financial history, poverty and other forms of discrimination.

Empowa focuses on:

• Economic empowerment, initially through property
• Connecting and empowering people to create a fairer economic system
• Helping to deliver affordable housing to poor and middle income people
• Community building
• Women empowerment
• Environmental impact

The Empowa Mission

The mission of Empowa is to develop a platform that:

• Empowers the financially excluded
• Creates a global community of shared value through meaningful relationships
• Reduces environmental impact

| White Paper © 2021 Empowa.io 4

THE CHALLENGE
Poverty Reduction

97% of the wealth of the world is held by 30% of the global population. 70% of the planet
is economically disempowered. Over the past 50 years, foreign aid of more than $2.3 trillion
dollars has been dispersed to poor countries. Research indicates that this aid can not only be
ineffective, but possibly damaging to recipient communities and countries.1

The reasons for failure are varied but can include corruption, overheads, audit costs and money
never reaching intended recipients. Investment into emerging economies, particularly Africa, is
also challenging. Investment has been limited by lack of capital, the unknown, risk of corruption,
depreciating currencies, legislative environments and project risk due to a lack of skills and
project management. This has created an investment backlog and pent up demand for trillions
of dollars of investment.

Around the world, property is one of the fundamental building blocks of wealth creation and a
roof over their heads is the basis of wealth for most households. Africa is the only region in the
world where urbanization has not led to poverty reduction2. 16% of urban households in Africa
have permanent roofs over their head3.

“The looming menace of major housing shortfalls in many African cities threatens urban
health and safety. Infectious diseases are especially hard to contain in densely populated,
informal settlements where residents may not have access to clean water, sanitation, adequate
ventilation, and emergency health care when they become sick.”4

There are several issues preventing the development of property in Africa:

• Property rights – it is estimated that more than 80% of the population has land and assets
with no official or legal record of those assets5. Property rights are particularly challenging
for women in Africa6.
• Affordability – low levels of investment, high interest rates and short finance terms (if
finance is even available) make the cost of capital extremely high. For example, the 2020
Centre for Affordable Housing (CAHF) Annual report indicates that the mortgage rate in
Zambia is 32% and at least 25% in Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
• Building skills – the high cost of capital results in a lack of demand leading to a shortage
of building skills. This vicious cycle results in low quality products at high cost. The World
Bank has estimated that African cities are 29% more expensive than comparable cities7.
• Lack of delivery – Developer built housing targets the higher end of the market and
happens rarely at scale. Shelter Afrique estimates that outside of South Africa, there are
almost no property developers who sustain an annual delivery of more than 500 units8.

1
Williamson,C Exploring the Failure of Foreign Aid: The Role of Incentives and Information, The Review of Austrian
Economics 23(1):17-33, 2009
2
‘African cities: Left behind’, The Economist, 15 September 2016, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-afri-
ca/2016/09/17/left-behind
3
Lall, Somik Vinay; Henderson, J. Vernon; Venables, Anthony J.. 2017. Africa’s Cities : Opening Doors to the World.. https://
openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25896
4
Gavin, M 2020: Africa’s Urban Housing Crisis, Th https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/africas-urban-housing-crisis
5
de Soto, Hernando, 2001. The Mystery of Capital. London: Bantam Press
6
World Bank Group, Women, Business and the Law, 2020: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/han-
dle/10986/32639/9781464815324.pdf
7
Lall, Somik Vinay; Henderson, J. Vernon; Venables, Anthony J.. 2017. Africa's Cities : Opening Doors to the World.. https://
openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25896
8
‘Rust, Kecia - Public Lecture IHS 2018
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These issues have created a housing backlog in Africa of over 50 million units9.

Africa’s Housing Crisis Intensified by Crowding Cities

Housing units needed to fill current backlog and urban population increases for select sountries

Housing units
needed to fill Urban population
current backlog increase, 2018-2030

Nigeria 17M 58M

DRC 3M 25M

Tanzania 3M 16M

Ethiopia 1M 15M

Angola 1.9M 12M

Egypt 3.5M 11M

Uganda 1.6M 9M

Kenya 2M 9M

South Africa 2.3M 8M

Algeria 1.2M 8M

Mozambique 2M 7M

Ghana 1.7M 7M

Cameroon 1.2< 7M

Madagascar 2M 6M

Ivory Coast 600K 6M

Mali 400K 6M

Morocco 600K 5M

Zambia 1.5M 5M

Burkina Faso 100K 4M

Note: Housing backlog estimates collected from multiple sources and in some cases may be outdated.
Sources: El-Hadj M. Bah, Issa Faye, Zekebweliwai F. Geh, Housing Market Dynamics in Africa; UN Population

Credit: CFR/Will Merrow

To add further demand pressure, Africa is the youngest continent, has the fastest growing
population and is urbanising at a rate of 23 million people per annum10.

Existing property development projects tend to be large projects, focused on the elite and
ignoring regular people. For example, Mozambique, a country of more than 30 million people,
has 600 mortgages11. The result is that most households in Africa build property themselves,
step-by-step, room-by-room.

9
Bah E.M., Faye I., Geh Z.F. (2018) The Housing Sector in Africa: Setting the Scene. In: Housing Market Dynamics in
Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59792-2_1
10
Kanos D., Heitzig C., (2020) Africa’s Urban Dynamics, Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-fo-
cus/2020/07/16/figures-of-the-week-africas-urbanization-dynamics/
11
Centre for Affordable Housing in Africa Yearbook 2020, http://housingfinanceafrica.org/app/uploads/2020_CAHF_
YEARBOOK_COMP-1.pdf

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Delivering Property at Scale

Most housing markets in Africa have few local developers with the technical and financial
strength to construct large-scale affordable housing projects. Also, developer finance is high
cost or even absent, especially in relation to low to middle income housing projects. These
projects are often out of the comfort zone of most financial institutions. This results in small
housing projects being financed with up-front cash payments that limit affordability.

On the ground experiences show that the key driver for property developers to move into the
affordable property sector is access to sufficient long-term capital funding on affordable terms
for the developer and land owner and access to business models that strike a balance between
project profitability and affordability while incorporating real estate principles including land
value uplift and cross subsidy mechanisms to deliver adequate, affordable housing at scale.

Environmental Impact

Due to the construction backlog, youthful population and increasing urbanisation, African
building requirements in the coming decades are twice that of China. If new construction
methodologies are not utilised, construction and buildings in Africa could contribute more than
50% to existing CO2 global emission levels12. This is clearly not an option.

Africa
Current floor area
China
India
North America Floor area additions

Europe
2017-30
ASEAN
Latin America
2030-40
Other Asia
Middle East
2040-50
OECD Pacific
Russia and Caspian region
2050-60
90 60 30 0 30 60 90

Billion m2

Notes: OECD Pacific includes Australia, New zealand, Japan and Korea; ASEAN= Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
SourceL IEA (2017), Energy Technology Perspectives2017, IEA/OECD, Paris, www.iea.org/etp

While many of the existing building methodologies and technologies are environmentally
destructive, they are cheaper than green alternatives. Existing methodologies present long term
financial and compliance risks, but it is easier to measure current direct financial return than
future costs and risk, so these are neither measured nor taken into account. This leaves future
generations and the rest of the planet to bear these costs.

12
IEA, (2017), Energy Technology Perspectives 2017, IEA/OECD, www.iea.org/etp

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A SOLUTION
Considerations

Any solution to these serious development challenges in the property sector needs to consider
the following:
• Sustainability – it needs to generate returns for all the parties involved. If it doesn’t, it will
depend on goodwill or charity which can be removed at any time.
• Reach – funding needs to get directly to delivery institutions that can provide bankable
property solutions for the market needs.
• Distribution – service delivery needs to penetrate a relatively unknown market that is
perceived as risky and difficult to penetrate. The approach needs to be bottom-up.
• Cost – the management of distribution doesn’t take up a significant portion of the costs.
High management costs create a vicious cycle; where the more marginalised the market,
the higher the perceived risk, the higher the cost of capital, the more cost load that is
placed on projects for those who can least afford it.
• Currency – developing world currency risk adds to the cost of finance. An ideal development
solution would enable developed world investors to be able to avoid this risk.
• The environment – while the ideal construction is CO2 negative, circular and made
from renewable materials, this is not yet a practical reality because of cost and supply.
Environmental objectives need to be funded and supported to bring about change and
begin to overcome these constraints and yet still be sustainable.

Technology

Empowa seeks to develop a solution to address both the challenges and the identified issues.
We believe that this is possible through a decentralised funding platform enabling social
and financial investment into property assets as the basis for economic empowerment and
environmental protection.

The initial focus of Empowa is linking the world to the African property market where there is
the most demand and opportunity.

There is a convergence of emerging technologies that enable the development of such a

solution:
• Tokenization – the key to liberating investment into a new and untapped asset class by
reducing transaction costs and risk while increasing liquidity
• Blockchain – for managing tokenization, decentralisation, smart contracts and transaction
verification
• Fintech – a cost effective mechanism to manage fiat currency
• Building – Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) is a global wave toward a standardised
and modular method of building. MMC enables a new approach to:
• Funding – moving away from fixed mortgages to asset-based funding significantly
reduces funding risk.
• Skills development – modular construction enables high tech and quality construction
without the need for high-end construction skills.
• Property rights – modular and circular building methods circumvent property land
rights by de-linking the building from the land.
• Reducing CO2 emissions through the use of renewable materials.

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Digital Collectables

Following the popularity of physical trading cards such as sports stars (e.g. NBA Basketball),
fictional characters (e.g. Pokemon) or games (e.g. Magic: The Gathering), that often don’t hold
any inherent value other than their agreed social importance, digital collectables have also
grown in adoption over recent years. The introduction of blockchain technologies, such as Non
Fungible Tokens (NFT), allows the new generation of digital collectibles to have cryptographic
attributes that not only allow proof of ownership to be established, but also provide assurances
of their uniqueness where there are limited supplies.

Many collectors look for certain characteristics that they value, such as the number of points
scored by a sports star or the strength of a game character. By incorporating community
empowerment attributes (also considered by many to be of social importance) into a digital
collectable that represents the story behind a property and the people it is supporting, the
desire to purchase them will help propel financially disadvantaged communities and unlock
wealth through new and innovative social interactions.

Financial Return

As a basic human need, the share of income a household spends on shelter averages between
30% and 50% in any society and UN Habitat estimates that Africans spend more than $330
billion annually on shelter, with little prospect of accessing consumer finance products for
support. This need and spend will continue to grow, evidenced also by the expected growth
in the African microfinance industry of 15% to 20% per annum in coming years. The Chinese
estimate that just to plug the affordable housing gap in Africa will require more than $1.4
trillion of investment13.

This demonstrates that property and property development is a growing investment asset class
in Africa. To date, conventional approaches have not worked, so success requires innovation
through a sustainable revolution, including a broad system of financial inclusion, financial
education, financing, and governance.

From an investment market perspective, the NFT market is tiny, valued at only $375 million
dollars to date14. However, it is also a new market, having only started in 2018. However, 48% of
these sales came in the last month showing the exponential growth. Some estimates have that
growth at 2100% for 202115. The gaming market is significantly larger with Wikipedia estimates
at over $60bn as are the charity and impact investment markets.

By linking various sources of capital to multiple and varied projects we enable the development
of supply. This "Blue Ocean" strategy positions the Empowa Platform as a key to scaling
property development in Africa. It creates a unique opportunity to be the platform of choice in a
currently uncontested market space.

The African property market is immature, and business plans are often based on assumptions
and local knowledge more than research, making it difficult to define risks and returns and

13
Yinglun, S (2019), Xinhua, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/africa/2019-08/13/c_138306312.htm#:~:text=The%20
firm's%20research%20showed%20that,in%20the%20affordable%20housing%20bracket.
14
McCall M, Editor Moneywire, (2021), https://investorplace.com/moneywire/2021/03/nft-nfts-crypto-exploded-growth-
potential-off-the-charts/
15
As above

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attract investors. The Empowa approach provides a solution to these issues. By combining
decentralised funding methods with a start-up methodology, we are able to start small, move
fast, take risks, identify, support and grow the best property developers and build trusted
suppliers and markets. This enables Empowa to be the platform driving growth in this market
sector.

At the right price, the African housing market has almost unlimited demand. So while the
initial focus is on affordable housing as the lowest cost projects to start small and scale, the
intention is to enable the platform to be utilised in future for all types of property development,
required for the emerging and growing middle class.

Beyond Financial Return

Empowa supports the creation of value beyond financial returns through the support of
alternative values as envisaged by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).

The Empowa platform directly or indirectly addresses 14 of the 17 SDG’s.

The Empowa platform:

• alleviates poverty by enabling the creation of wealth in the communities that need it most
(SDG 1,8,9)
• significantly improves economic and living conditions for Africans (SDG 3,4,6,11)
• provides funding to a market that is currently excluded from the financial system (financial
inclusion - SDG10)
• supports the development of green/sustainable buildings with a particular emphasis on
organic, modular and circular materials (SDG 11,12,13)
• supports the provision of alternative energy and infrastructure solutions such as solar
panels (SDG 7)
• Supports the economic empowerment of women by supplying business opportunities in
property development and ownership (SDG 5)
• enables local partners thereby supporting the creation of skills and income (SDG 17)

Empowa is at the forefront of combining emerging technologies, innovations and decentralised

financial access into a unique platform to enable property development solutions to meet
exploding African demand. The Empowa platform enables direct and visible, social and financial
“investment” into a market that does much more than create wealth – it fundamentally changes
lives and protects the planet.

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THE EMPOWA PLATFORM
The Empowa Platform will provide the software application/integration services and standard
processes required to establish a decentralised marketplace where different participants can
engage in partnerships for the shared creation of wealth through the growth in property
demands in developing countries and people’s desire to “collect” moments of socially agreed
value.

Trade Payout
Yield
Collector Collector Generators
Fiat
Payments
Purchase
Empowerment Land Value Re-empower
Cards + Rent

Currency Insurance /
Stabiliser Empowa Platform Rewards

Project Listed Rent & Reporting

Supplier
Payment
Project Land Value Property Pay Rent
Partner Manager
Rent Rent

Approved
Land “Owner” Tenant
Supplier

Platform Participants

The following describes the different participants in the Empowa Platform, a marketplace for
economic empowerment and social synergies through property development.

Collectors
The Empowa Platform gives everyday people with savings the opportunity to contribute to the
economic empowerment of others through the purchase of Empowerment Cards (see below).
There are three potential Collector markets:
• Collectors – those who purchase collectables for the joy of collecting.
• Investors – those who purchase Empowerment Cards seeking a potential financial return
from an increase in the value of the Card
• Philanthropists – those who seek to contribute to issues that they care about such as the
economic empowerment, empowerment of women, development of a particular area or
country or the environment.

Empowerment Cards are designed to attract all of these markets and encourage trading
between them.

Each card represents a unique portion of an African property development, with more
characteristics than just financial value. Cards introduce an element of fun through chance,
reduce the size of contributions and spread risks across projects, market segments, cities and

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countries. The objective is to build on the gaming element that appeals to the inner child, to
make it fun while having impact.

The Empowa Platform creates a marketplace for these cards allowing collectors to buy and
sell cards based on their interests. As cards will accumulate empowerment stories as well as
financial value (to reimburse their original cost through rent collection), they will possess and
develop more intrinsic value than traditional collector cards. While Collectors may purchase
cards with a view to getting a potential return (like traditional property investment), it will be
emphasised that the core objectives are empowerment and community collectiveness, so while
financial returns are possible they cannot be assured.

NOTE: It is important that Collectors understand that they do not have any ownership of the physical
property asset. While the cards do partly represent a property, they more accurately represent shared
wealth empowerment through funding of the property’s development and the collection of rent from it.

Land Owners
Land Owners in developing countries often have difficulty accessing traditional finance in order
to take advantage of land that could be used to build properties to generate wealth. By giving
Land Owners access to Collectors through the Empowa Platform, they can crowdfund their
property project, collateralising their land through decentralised finance.

Approved Suppliers
There are emerging global and local construction companies that can supply eco-friendly,
modular and affordable structures. The demand for these structures however is impacted by
the inability of land owners to access finance to acquire them.

Suppliers approved to participate in construction projects initiated through the Empowa

Platform must demonstrate they can practically meet Empowa’s objectives to:
• Deliver on time and on budget
• Use eco-friendly materials
• Use modular and circular building methods
• Contribute to the community; employ and train local labour resources
• Meet ethical and quality standards

As discussed above, construction companies currently lack the ability to scale and train in the
use of environmentally sustainable practices due to insufficient investment (and therefore
demand) to grow the market. Empowa will therefore support existing and new suppliers
by leveraging the shared wealth creation from the Empowa Platform to provide ongoing
investment into this essential role within the ecosystem. This may be done at a platform level
(e.g. a percentage of all returns) or through individual Collectors “re-empowering” their returns
into other projects (see Empowerment Cards below).

Tenants
As discussed above, with the urbanisation of many developing countries, the quality of rental
units is low while the relative costs can be very high. The Empowa platform enables tenants
access to improved quality of accommodation, but more importantly, the Empowa platform
enables tenants to get onto the property ladder themselves by including them in the wealth
creation ecosystem. Tenants are a cornerstone of the Empowa ecosystem and will be recognised
and rewarded for this.

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Platform Service Providers

Not everyone has the capacity or capabilities required to embark on property construction
projects and manage interactions with tenants. Combine this with the need to interface with
a technology platform that enables the flow of value between participants and the need
for service providers to support these actions becomes apparent. Below are some of the
initial service providers that will be required to support those participating in the Empowa
marketplace when it launches, with new service providers coming on board as the platform
evolves.

Project Partners
Project Partners are locally based individuals or organisations who have the capacity, local
knowledge and skills to initiate and package property delivery models that can be replicated
and scaled to catalyse property markets in African cities. Project partners may play one or
several roles in the ecosystem.

Initially Project Partners will not only list the opportunities, but they will also validate
the business plans and suppliers enabling the building of trust in the ecosystem. While
the intention is not to create gatekeepers, this role is vital initially to reduce risk to the
ecosystem. The intention is to automate this process in time enabling direct access by trusted
organisations and individuals.

Property Managers
Property Managers are selected, trusted locally based individuals or companies that will
support Tenants and Land Owners in accessing the Empowa system. Again, while the ecosystem
and trust is being built and the requisite skills developed for direct access, Property Managers
will support Tenants and Land Owners manage the rentals and cash flows as well as supporting
the maintenance of the property asset.

Yield Generators
With the advent of decentralised finance systems and other processes being built on blockchain
technology that yield returns (e.g. staking), value stored in Empowerment Cards can be
leveraged to grow the shared wealth further through Yield Generators that Collectors can
select from through the platform.

As Land Owners have a value attributed to the land on which their rental properties are
constructed (as it is required to form a rent generating property), that forms part of the total
value that is fractionalised over the Empowerment Cards that represent it. Putting this value
along with rental income into a Yield Generator diversifies risk and can help speed up the
wealth creation process.

It should be noted that doing so could add risk. Collectors can choose not to attribute their
share of the property’s value into a Yield Generator, in which case it would simply accumulate,
locked in the Empowa Platform’s smart contracts.

Fiat Payment Processors

As Empowa intends to attract Collectors not yet exposed to blockchain and cryptocurrencies,
it is important that they do not experience the complexities that some cryptocurrency users
currently do, due largely to the still maturing nature of the industry.

While their Empowerment Cards will hold financial value through the EMP token used by the
platform (see below), services will be available to simplify the payment process using fiat
currencies, by providing services such as mobile money, EFT, credit cards or PayPal.

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Platform Features

The following describes the different features that will be provided through the Empowa
Platform to support the capabilities required to enable a marketplace where Participants and
Service Providers can interact in a decentralised and transparent manner.

Empowerment Cards
For a Collector to participate in opportunities for empowerment, they will purchase a “pack” of
“Empowerment Cards” (a suitable launch name for these cards will be determined following a
marketing analysis). Each card will represent a unique share of an empowerment project. The
quantity of cards owned will determine what percentage of the rent collected and other value
they will receive.

From a technical perspective Empowerment Cards are Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the
Cardano blockchain. Cryptographic “ownership” of financial value (i.e. EMP tokens) is locked to
NFTs, which will ensure that only the owner of an NFT (also cryptographically provable) can
make changes to it (e.g. transfer the EMP tokens out). While many participants won’t care about
the assurances these blockchain features provide, it does ensure that access to this value is
guaranteed beyond the Empowa Platform if necessary.

NOTE: While NFT markets are being developed to provide fractional ownership of physical real
estate, Empowerment Card NFTs do NOT give the holder any ownership rights over the property
development that they helped fund.

An important feature of Empowerment Cards is the inclusion of attributes that record non-
financial values, characteristics of which will incentivise their collectability. Some examples of
non-financial attributes being considered are:
• Environmental Impact Score
• Land Owner Family Empowerment
• Tenant Family Empowerment
• Local Community Empowerment
• Women Empowerment
• Local Artist Works
• Area, Region and Country
• Other unique attributes yet to be explored with the community

Collectors will be given an opportunity to improve some of these values through EMP
contribution or the “re-empowerment” of collected income transferred to their cards. For
example, they may choose to contribute some of their available value into a local community
project, such as a community hall. While this would result in the EMP value of the card
reducing, it would cause the Local Community Empowerment value to increase.

Gamification will also be explored to encourage the trading of cards to accumulate “sets”, which
can then be combined to further boost card characteristics. As with other digital collectables,
it is possible that each card’s non-financial attributes may cause them to attract sale prices
different to just their financial stored value.

Cards will also include a history around the property and empowerment it represents, such
as stories, images and video. Examples of entries could be the completion of the property’s
construction, tenant stories, community projects. This will elaborate on the raw empowerment
scores for anyone who owns or is interested in the card, providing an emotional connection and
promoting further engagement.

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Part of Empowa’s vision is that the use of non-financial characteristics, the gamification of
collectable sets and the opportunity to re-empower beyond the original cost, will build an
ecosystem culture that places social value above financial value.

The Empowa Token (EMP)

The Empowa Platform relies on the exchange of value between many different parties, service
providers and smart contract processes. Due to the global nature of the platform, many of the
participating entities will have different local currencies. This not only adds complexity in
managing the exchange of different currencies within the marketplace, but also doesn’t allow
the predictable tracking of value through the system.

The Empowa Platform will therefore use the Empowa utility token (EMP). Those wishing to
participate in the property empowerment marketplace will first exchange their local currency
into EMP tokens. For those familiar with cryptocurrencies, this can be done through common
exchanges they are used to, whereas others will utilise Fiat Payment Processors (see above) to
simplify the process.

Web Services
A frontend web application where Participants and Service Providers can interact with the
marketplace will be made available. While not essential for interaction with the platform, it
will likely be a common starting point for many users.

Backend APIs will also be available so that the platform can be accessed from other
applications, such as wallets or DeFi platforms. Opportunities will exist for Service Providers
to implement other applications (e.g. a mobile app for submitting rent payments, reporting
on property inspections or providing media based personal stories) or to extend the initial
methods for interacting with the platform (e.g. additional language support).

Smart Contracts
The Empowa Platform will utilise smart contracts on the Cardano blockchain to lock or transfer
EMP tokens according to criteria defined at a property, project or platform level. Examples
include:
• NFT Financial Value
• Distribution of Rent Payments
• Scheduled Supplier Payments
• Currency Stabilisers
• Tenant Insurance/Rewards

Smart contracts will also update other NFT attributes according to given rules. For example,
a Collector may choose to contribute some of the EMP tokens on a given card towards a solar
panel initiative for the property, which would then boost the environment rating for that card.

Off-Chain Agreements
Some of the interactions (e.g. collecting rent, engaging suppliers) between Participants and
Service Providers will occur in the real world and therefore need to have a mechanism for
bridging how those interactions occur with the Empowa Platform, so that Participants who
can’t be there in-person (e.g. Collectors) still have access to information about how they will
happen and the outcomes when they do.

The Empowa Platform will therefore include a collection of standardised agreements that can
be extended if required for jurisdictions that have specific laws that need to be catered for.
When Service Providers initiate a new project, the appropriate agreement templates will be
completed with the relevant Participants and any non-digital representations of them (e.g. an
ink signed version) will be digitised for inclusion on the platform.

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As Participants and Service Providers carry out their obligations as outlined in the agreements,
the actions will be recorded on the platform so the history can be traced and recalled if
required (e.g. there is a legal challenge).

Platform Parameters
The Empowa Platform will automate many aspects of the processing of inputs (e.g. card
purchases, rent payments), so that funds are directed to the correct location (e.g. yield
generators, currency stabilisers, etc.) and Empowerment Card attributes are updated.

Many of these automated processes will be subject to criteria that can be defined through
platform parameters, allowing them to be modified if required and eventually voted on when
the platform is decentralised as part of phase 3 (see below).
Examples include:
• Insurance/Reward Reserve – The percentage of rent collected that should be held and what
timeframes are set for issuing Tenant rewards.
• Service Provider Commissions – Per transaction or fixed fee compensation for service
providers supporting those participating in empowerment projects.
• Platform Fees – Fee for operating the platform and managing service provider partnerships.
• Empowerment Programs – The percentage of generated shared wealth to be used to
support the growth in Participants (e.g. Approved Suppliers) and Service Providers (e.g.
Project Partners, Property Managers) that are essential for the continued success of the
platform.

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HOW IT WORKS
An Example

Mary approaches Betta Build, an Empowa Project Partner in South Africa, to assist her in
building rental units on some spare land behind her existing house.

Betta Build assess the property and upon determining that Mary does not have a formal land
title, discuss with her the option of adding modular, relocatable units. This will protect the
functional value of the buildings if there is a challenge for Mary’s land during the ownership
transition period (10 years by default), as they can be relocated to provide continued rental
income elsewhere if required.

Betta Build advises Mary that her vacant land can support 4 units, which she agrees to have
constructed. An agreement is signed between Betta Build and Mary, which is recorded on the
Empowa Platform, a proof of which is stored on the blockchain.

Betta Build engages a local Approved Supplier, who quotes R450,000 to supply and construct
the 4 units on Mary’s land.

From a legal perspective (i.e. the laws in South Africa) the units will be owned by Betta Build
until “paid off” over the term of the agreement with Mary. This allows any ownership disputes
to be dealt with locally and removes the need to manage the complexities of having fractional
asset ownership through NFTs. Betta Build’s agreement with Empowa (or the Empowa
community DAO after phase 3) protects other participants in the platform that have an interest
in the empowerment this property is facilitating.

As Mary’s land is required for the units to be functional rent generators, it is attributed a value
of R300,000 (i.e. two thirds that of the unit cost). This gives the rental property a total value of
R750,000.

Betta Build lists the property on the Empowa Platform, along with some information about
Mary and the potential empowerment this property will provide. At the time of listing the
exchange rate between ZAR and the EMP token is 15:1, which results in the property being
listed with a value of 50,000 EMP.

The Empowa Platform generates Empowerment Cards relating to Mary’s property. These
may vary in EMP value and be in proportion of the total value of the property. The cards are
distributed among different “packs” available for purchase by Collectors, based on how much
they are willing to spend.

The random distribution of cards to packs of different prices results in all cards eventually
being purchased. The collection of EMP tokens as part of the card sales is then used to fund
the project.

30,000 of the 50,000 EMP tokens collected from card sales are held in a smart contract and
released according to a payment schedule provided by Betta Build (supplied when listing
the property on the Empowa Platform) in accordance with their contract with the Approved
Supplier.

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To ensure the originally listed exchange rate (i.e. 15:1) is maintained so market volatility in
the EMP token doesn’t affect Betta Build’s ability to pay the construction supplier, ZAR stable
coins are supplied from a Currency Stabiliser (a smart contract) in exchange for the EMP tokens,
which once transferred (according to the above schedule) are locked for later access by Property
Managers needing to exchange rent.

The remaining 20,000 EMP tokens (the value of Mary’s land) are transferred to Yield Generators
according to their share of the total amount. This diversifies risk and allows the value of Mary’s
land to contribute to the generation of wealth.

While construction is underway, Betta Build supports Mary in finding a Property Manager
registered on the Empowa Platform, who will help Mary collect rent, acquire and manage
tenants and ensure the property is maintained. A service agreement between Mary and the
Property Manager is recorded on the Empowa Platform.

Once the rental units are completed and populated with tenants, the Property Manager assists
Mary by collecting rent payments and transferring the required amount of EMP tokens into the
Empowa Platform. A commission for performing this service is paid to the Property Manager by
the Empowa Platform.

As tenants are acquired the rental agreements are recorded on the Empowa Platform which is
used to inform the Property Manager (who may change over the ownership transition period)
how much should be collected and how it is distributed (between Mary and the Empowa
Platform). As rent is paid and property conditions reviewed, the status is recorded to track a
tenant’s reputation over time.

Mary and her Property Manager secure tenants for her units, who each agree to pay a minimum
of R2,625/month – a total of R10,500/month.

There is a split in the amount of rent allocated by the smart contract on the Empowa Platform
between the Collector, the Property Manager and Mary. Mary’s share increases annually over
the ownership transition period. Part of the fee collected by the Property Manager is to ensure
she represents the Collectors as well as Mary, so that the correct rent share payments are made
to each.

When converting the rent collected in ZAR to EMP tokens for transfer to the Empowa Platform,
tokens are accessed from the Currency Stabiliser at the original exchange rate (i.e. 15:1) until
all tokens available to this property are exhausted. This will provide a predictable rental
income in EMP tokens for the first 4 - 5 years of the ownership transition period (depending on
rent price) and ensures there is no loss to the Collector due to price volatility.

Based on the above example’s monthly rent (and assuming an initial 80/20 split with Mary),
560 EMP tokens/month would be exchanged with the Currency Stabiliser and transferred to the
card holder’s Yield Generator selections (less the Property Manager’s fee).

After the Currency Stabiliser is exhausted of EMP tokens for transferring rent payments to each
collector’s Yield Generators (this is handled by the Empowa Platform), the Property Manager
will acquire EMP tokens on the open market for future payments.

As Mary collects her share of the rent, the equivalent amount of EMP locked as part of the
original 20,000 EMP attributed to her land is released for access by the card holders. By the
end of the ownership transition period all 20,000 EMP will eventually be unlocked.

In addition to capital from the original land value and income from rent into Yield Generators
according to each Collector’s selection, the Empowa Platform maintains a fixed proportion of
this value as an Insurance fund to cover any costs associated with needing to relocate units due

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to a land dispute. In such an event the Property Manager would contact the original Project
Partner (in this example Betta Build) or an alternative if the original is no longer available, to
arrange for the units to be relocated to a new interested land owner.

Following the initial part of the ownership transition period whereby the unit construction
costs are paid off (4 - 5 years), the associated Empowerment Cards will hold a value of 100% of
the original amount. At this point the proportion of EMP held for an Insurance fund will also
become a tenant Rewards fund. Tenants will be given the opportunity to share in the returns
being generated for the Collectors and Land Owners, by demonstrating commitment through
consistent rent payments (tracked on the blockchain) and ensuring the rental property is kept
in good condition (also recordable on the blockchain in Property Manager reports). In addition
to giving the tenant access to a share of the wealth generated by the property, their reputation
history will be developed and could also be transferred if they need to relocate or wish to buy a
property.

As the Collector’s Empowerment Cards can be valued in EMP at any stage of the ownership
transition period, they can be sold at any time on the Empowa Platform to other collectors. This
fractional contribution with easy liquidity empowers collectors who wish to support developing
communities, without the risk of being locked in for the full ownership transition period.

At the end of the ownership transition period Mary’s agreement with Betta Build for the unit
construction is completed and she takes ownership. The collectors who hold Empowerment
Cards are paid their value in EMP tokens and any remaining rewards are paid to tenants
(rewards payments are ongoing during the second half of the ownership transition period). All
agreements are marked as completed on the Empowa Platform.

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ATTRIBUTES OF PLATFORM
SUCCESS
An Overview

The success of the Empowa Platform depends on the following:

• Team
• Technology
• Tokenomics
• Community

Each of these elements is required to develop, build and sustain value.

Team

An ambitious project like this requires a team with experience in a range of diverse subjects.
The Empowa platform requires an understanding of the complex technology issues, the
challenging delivery issues in Africa and most importantly how to bridge the two. It needs to
combine the soft heart of wishing to make a fundamental difference in the world, with the hard
head to deliver technology solutions to meet business needs. Technology is only one aspect of
the solution. People, marketing and partnerships for on-the-ground delivery are as important.

Outlined below are some of the team members, supporters and collaborators already in place.
The team will need to be expanded in order to deliver a solution. Some functions will be full
time and some will be outsourced. These decisions will be made as the business develops
with the view to source and develop the best team to meet the business needs, budgets and
objectives.

Glen Jordan - Co-Founder

Glen Jordan is a serial impact entrepreneur and has been involved in the creation and
development of several successful impact businesses in Africa.

Passionate about wealth creation in the developing world, Glen believes in using his skills, new
technologies and innovative thinking to improve life for the marginalised. His life has always
been based on the principle of doing well by doing good.

Glen has developed fintech solutions for migrants and achieved global recognition in the
e-learning space in Africa, creating innovative, integrated learning networks with academia, the
private sector, labour and communities. He also developed new media platforms by integrating
new technologies and social media with old-fashioned promotions and activation campaigns,
successfully creating a mix of high tech with human touch.

In 2017, a Dutch asset manager challenged him to find a way to create a pension for someone
in informal employment. As property is a key pillar in the creation of wealth, and inaccessible
for most, is there a solution? In 2018, he founded Bitprop (www.bitprop.com) to address this

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challenge in South Africa with a backyard rental model and proved that there is a significant
opportunity to create wealth and improve living conditions. However, for it to expand across
the African continent, the solution requires a decentralised funding platform based on new
technologies and new thinking - Empowa.

Phil Lewis - Co-Founder

Phil has over 20 years experience designing and implementing large scale software and IT
solutions, including more recently (7+ years) leading the implementation and support of web
based Software as a Service (SaaS) products designed to service hundreds of thousands of
users.

As a technology communicator Phil has presented solutions to large private and government
organisations, with his last two successful tender wins exceeding $100 million. In 2020 Phil led
the successful completion of a robust school administration and digital learning platform, to be
used by 900 public schools and pre-schools across South Australia.

Phil’s career has been driven by a desire to bring technology solutions that add value to
social good sectors, such as Education, Health and Community Services. This motivation and
experience has led Phil to take on new challenges at a global scale.

As an active member of the Cardano community since 2018, Phil has participated in early
adoption and testing programs, such as the Jörmungandr Testnet (testing Cardano’s Ouroboros
Proof of Stake protocol) and Fund0 of Catalyst (Cardano’s decentralised governance project).

Marie-Odile Zanders – Head of Partnership Development

Marie-Odile Zanders is an experienced housing and investment expert with a 20+ year track
record in developing and investing in affordable housing projects in the global South. She has
practical experience in delivery and is currently active on the ground as a social entrepreneur
at Casa Real, delivering housing projects and financial innovation in Africa. In 2019 she signed
a groundbreaking Memorandum with ABSA Mozambique (part of the ABSA group, the number 2
bank in Africa) to mobilise end-user financing for clients who previously could not access such
funding.

Between 2007 and 2013, while working at Dutch International Guarantees for Housing (DIGH),
she engaged intensively with a range of international banks and investors and used DIGH’s €75
million affordable housing portfolio to leverage investments and support for DIGH's activities
in Eastern-Europe, Latin America and Southern Africa. In recent years she has both consulted
to, and broadened her relationships with, investors, NPO’s and DFI’s with interests in financial
inclusion, poverty alleviation, affordable housing and property development.

Alke Gijrath – Head of Public Relations

Alke is a social and culture-sensitive networker and facilitator with passion for and experience
in the implications of land (property) ownership and women’s issues. Her most recent
experience has been as a facilitator at the LANDdialogue, a multi-stakeholder initiative
aiming to improve global land governance through practical application and the monitoring
of improvement measures by Dutch companies, the Dutch government, knowledge institutes
and NGOs. This entails strategic thinking in policy analysis, stakeholder facilitation and
communication at all levels. Due to her previous broad experience in the private sector, Civil
Society, government and multilateral organisations, Alke is capable of dealing with multi-
dimensional and multi-faceted challenges and opportunities, linking different players with
differing political, social and economic perspectives.

Her key competencies are strategy development, stakeholder facilitation, proposal writing,
client acquisition, lobbying, PR/PA, networking and communication.

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Hai Vo - Community Champion
Hai Vo has extensive experience in IT, Human Resources management, and has more than 15
years’ experience in setting up and managing remote and distributed IT teams. Hai has taught
Yoga for almost a decade and is passionate about helping people thrive in their lives through
coaching. He believes that the greatest value is built on long lasting relationships, where
everyone is equally acknowledged. Hai leads Empowa's community building efforts. 

Hung Tran - Creative Director

Working for more than 25 years in the Media and Technology industry, Hung always tries to get
to the bottom of things. Discovering the 'WHY' has been a core design element in his work.

Over the past decade he has been active as a lead in experience design for industry leaders in
the banking, telecom and human resourcing sector. This has allowed Hung to develop human
experience pattern languages, design systems and research methodologies that are currently
being used to design smart city initiatives and big data marketplaces.

As founder of a decentralised data platform his goal is to bring more balance into the digital
economy by shifting more capital towards consumers and small businesses.

Senny Kalidien - Front End

Senny is a Front-end Developer with an entrepreneurial mindset and a good feeling for design.
He is passionate about turning ideas into concepts through collaboration. He is always stepping
between different worlds looking for new inspiration, adventures, experiences and things to
learn.

Blane Edwards - Sustainability Architect

Blane is an Architect and Crypto Content Creator with a passion for wildlife conservation and
sustainable design. His mission is to combine his love of design and blockchain, to create
innovative environmental solutions that are impactful, scalable and ultimately sustainable.

To help accelerate this mission, he created and hosts both an environmental and cryptocurrency
podcast, with the collective purpose to support and raise awareness for a diverse range of
impactful ideas, people and projects within these domains.

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Partnerships

Empowa recognises that the success of a decentralised empowerment platform is dependent

on having strong partnerships with those who have existing knowledge in the challenges being
addressed. We have therefore engaged with the following partners to support us in achieving
our Phase 1 goals. While the number of partners will grow as we progress through Phase 1, we
also anticipate bringing on many more accredited and trusted partners as we transition into
Phase 2.

Project Partners / Property Managers / Suppliers

Kwangu Kwako Limited (KKL) – Kenya

www.kwangukwako.com

In 2015, after experiencing a fire in Mukuru Informal Settlement that left around 200 metal
sheeting and timber houses completely destroyed, Kwangu’s Co-Founders; Simon Dixon and
Winnie Gitau, took up the challenge to come up with a housing product that was affordable,
secure and simple in design to meet the challenges of informal settlement environments and
the needs of families. In January 2016, the first prototype was set up after 3 months of product
design. The prototype enabled KKL to obtain first hand customer feedback from tenants and
landlords from informal settlements. This exercise greatly contributed to the current product
being delivered around Nairobi.

The KKL vision is to be the ultimate enabler to access safer, secure, dignified and affordable
homes to the under-served communities and KKL is seeking new and innovative funding
models to support this. To achieve this, they source the construction team from the
communities we work in to deliver these homes. Through capacity building by their team and
people from the area build homes for the community to live and thrive in.

Casa Real – Mozambique

https://www.casareal.co.mz/

Casa Real is the leading Mozambican Housing Development Company (HDC) delivering
innovative and quality affordable housing solutions for low and middle income families.
Registered as a Social Enterprise with the Ministry of Justice, Casa Real aims at providing
secured homes with land titles in integrated safe neighbourhoods with good access roads,
social amenities like schools, police stations, gardens and open space for children to play.

Casa Real is part of a global network of Housing Development organisations delivering

affordable housing to low-middle income urban people in Africa and Asia. The Network of
HDCs’s operating in Africa are in Angola, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South
Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

The mission of Casa Real is to unlock an affordable housing market in Mozambique so

that access to adequate housing for all their clients. Casa Real transforms client dreams
into reality by designing and building what they can afford. Their focus is on delivering
quality, yet affordable housing units for low and middle-income families in integrated urban
neighbourhoods.

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Betta.Build – South Africa
www.betta.build

Betta.Build have experience in implementing building projects for rental income in areas
where there are complex or informal land titles. Betta.Build’s “Housing as a Service” develops
rental units for those who are excluded from the financial system due to the lack of title or
insufficient income. Betta.Build seeks to link capital to environmentally positive, income-
producing, affordable and modular homes which provide returns for the collector, create wealth
for property owners and improve living conditions for tenants.

Betta Build will provide the Project Partner and Property Manager services during the Phase 1
pilot in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Uganda
Work has started with leading women empowerment players in Uganda to explore
opportunities. The relationship and project maturity are not yet sufficiently developed for
inclusion in Phase One but it is anticipated that they will be ready by Phase Two. There is
potential in this market.

Technology Partners

African Blockchain Center for Developers (ABCD)

As Empowa’s vision of empowering communities will begin in Africa, we thought it was
important to also explore partnerships with Cardano developers that are already forming
within Africa. The African Blockchain Center for Developers is a company registered in Nigeria.
Their mission is to “create opportunities by providing blockchain solutions to the world thanks
to young talents working in Africa.” The vision of the ABCD is to help bridge the developer-
skills gap in Africa by providing better access to high-quality curriculums and equip them with
world-class skills on blockchain technology.

This partnership not only ensures we have access to developers with Cardano specific
knowledge, but also further empowers African communities by allowing them to share in the
success and growth of the Empowa Platform.

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Advisers and Collaborators

Africap LLC
https://www.africapllc.com/

Africap was one of the first Africa-specific private equity funds in the United States and has
been investing across Sub-Saharan Africa since 1999.

Africap was established with the primary purpose of creating long-term value for investors
through small and midsize enterprises in Africa. They focus on Impact Investment across a
range of industries including real estate and technology where financial performance and
societal impact are intrinsically aligned. These investments are made either directly or through
a joint venture arrangement with strategic partners seeking to foster Economic Development.
Their efforts and capital have grown thousands of jobs and supported local economies across
the African continent.

Andrew Maclean - Consultant

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-maclean-46247b18/?originalSubdomain=uk

Andrew Maclean is a chartered civil engineer who over his career has built sewage works,
cathedrals, schools, houses and many things in between. Andrew now works as an independent
consultant for several clients such as the affordable housing specialist, Reall and the Private
Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG). Previously he worked as a specialist infrastructure
adviser for DFID, including leading on private infrastructure investment. Andrew lived in
Maputo from 2007 to 2010 and in 5 other African countries from 1989 to 2007 building his
extensive experience in property development in Africa. He is currently based in the UK.

Jo Bronckers
Co-Founder, Board Member and Regional Chair – FIBREE
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-bronckers-7823464/

Jo has over 20 years of experience in Real Estate at FGH Bank and Rabo Real Estate Division,
DLL, IVBN and Vesteda in the Netherlands. He has been working with blockchain-technology
since 2014, with a specific focus on its applicability to real estate processes.

Larry English
Director – Urbuntu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-english-34bb315/

Larry is a recognized leader in the field of affordable housing and urban development. He has
more than thirty years’ experience at levels from policy, through planning, design, institutional
development, financing, to actual delivery of property development. He has served as Owner,
Director and CEO, for REALL, Habitat for Humanity International and has investment and project
experience in 29 countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and South-East Asia.

Lee Bratcher
Professor at Dallas Baptist University – Researching blockchain applications in social science
Founder – Texas Blockchain Council
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-bratcher-7a949892/

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Professor Bratcher coordinates the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics program and directs
the MA in International Studies at Dallas Baptist University. His research revolves around
blockchain applications in social science which has allowed him to travel in pursuit of his
research interests and build a network of industry contacts. In addition to teaching, program
development, and research, he serves as a consultant on blockchain use cases for a blockchain
startup, a think tank, and a consulting firm.

Marijn Wiersma
Chief Belief & Founder – Incredible Impact
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marijnwiersma/

Marijn is a corporate anthropologist, who inspires people to follow her vision for a better world.
She is passionate about, and stubbornly committed to, solving world problems by unlocking
the potential of women, ensuring that they get seats and a voice at the table. She has over 20
years of successful international experience, of which 10 years is on the African continent. She
co-authored the book “Banking for a Better World”, is a renowned speaker on financial inclusion
and has been making video portraits of female role models from the financial sector globally.
She has lived on three continents, worked in over 35 countries and is a mother of four.

Rupert Dehaene-Gold
Director – Urbuntu
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupert-dehaene-gold-6b5b0339/

Rupert is an experienced real estate development and asset management professional with
over 19 years working in Asia, Africa and Europe with International Management Firms (Atkins),
International Finance Institutions and Family Offices. He has a strong background in strategic
planning, economics, asset development, investment, and management.

Wolf Bierens - Founder – Easy Housing

https://www.easyhousing.org

Easy Housing is a circular and carbon positive building system based on engineered and
sustainable timber. Our vision is to make sustainable affordable housing accessible to emerging
economies. Our standardised and scalable concept offers a unique solution to the urgent and
growing need for affordable sustainable housing across the globe. Easy Housing does not
require any concrete or steel. In our timber building concept, each kilogram of wood stores
around 1.7 kilograms of CO2. It is widely accepted that timber will become the leading building
material in the coming decades, as it holds many competitive and qualitative advantages over
concrete.

Easy Housing has been standardised and engineered to be internationally safe and comfortable.
Our concept is structurally sound, energy efficient and complies with regulations. It is
engineered with proper building physics and has fire safe and acoustically decent technical
details. In combination with a scalable and optimised supply chain, this makes Easy Housing a
globally accessible solution for sustainable housing.

Easy Housing is climate resilient and withstands natural disasters like floods, earthquakes
and hurricanes. In addition, circular concepts like Easy Housing create long-term value,
allow for relocation, repurposing and incremental building. It does not cause waste during
construction and at the end of life. The building materials have a lifespan of centuries when
properly maintained and can be reused over and over again. Easy Housing was developed out
of this philosophy and through its holistic approach, it touches upon nearly all sustainable
development goals.

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Technology - The Cardano Blockchain

Although there are various blockchains now available with different features and strengths, at
Empowa we consider the Cardano solution being built by IOG (formerly IOHK) to be best suited
to implement our platform.

While many others are claiming to be building a third generation blockchain, the Cardano
project teams are initially focusing their attention on three core capabilities that they believe
are essential for the technology to gain widespread adoption. These are:

1. Scalability – Having the ability to support hundreds of thousands to millions of users is an

obvious requirement for a technology to be able to gain mass adoption. This is something
that particularly applies to Empowa, as our platform will eventually aim to empower
distributed property funding globally, for which there is a huge demand.

2. Sustainability – This relates to having a mechanism in place to ensure the technology

continues to be maintained beyond the original project’s completion. While Cardano
already benefits from being an open source project, critical infrastructure such as this
needs to continue evolving, which is often slow if unfunded. Having a Treasury system built
into Cardano so ongoing development can be funded through community agreed initiatives
is a key criteria for Empowa having confidence in our choice of Cardano as an underlying
blockchain infrastructure that will be maintained for many years to come.

3. Interoperability – This is not only being considered to allow Cardano to exchange value
with other public blockchains that operate as cryptocurrencies (which is an important
goal for the blockchain sector in general), but is also supporting interoperability with
permissioned blockchains that have specific use cases (e.g. industry supply chain tracking
or a nation’s government identity system) so that users of those permissioned blockchains
can interact with external systems and markets globally without needing to interface
through clunky exchanges or similar. An example of how Empowa may benefit from this
capability is by integrating with projects working to implement land titles on blockchains.

While at Empowa we agree with the importance of these core requirements, we were also
drawn to Cardano as the infrastructure solution on which to build due to the following project
qualities:

1. Scientific/Research Based Approach – Rather than simply copying an existing blockchain

and the flaws that could be inherited (a common approach for many blockchain projects),
Cardano has been built from scratch using peer reviewed research to ensure the
technology and protocols can be demonstrated to be provably secure. We consider this
to be a significant step forward in the blockchain industry, as for any technology to gain
widespread adoption society often looks to the scientific method for confidence that it can
be trusted or that it is safe.

2. Professional Development Practices – Due to how young the technology is and the open
source nature of almost all blockchains, teams and communities with limited development
experience have the opportunity to participate or start their own projects. While this has
contributed to incredible acceleration of the technology due to the sharing of ideas, the
“move fast and break things” approach is often not the most effective for building critical
infrastructure and may not give confidence to large enterprises that follow different
software development practices. IOG’s use of Formal Methods in the development of
Cardano has given Empowa (and likely other businesses) confidence that the quality will be

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 high and therefore less likely to experience bugs or vulnerabilities that other projects have
experienced.

3. Secure Smart Contract Language – While Ethereum’s smart contract language Solidity was
the catalyst for the original explosion in blockchain use cases and cryptocurrency tokens, it
is widely considered to still suffer from potential exploits due to the way smart contracts
are developed with it. With Ethereum acting as a successful proof of concept for the
value of smart contracts, third generation blockchains such as Cardano are learning from
the experiences of Ethereum and developing more robust smart contract languages. IOG
have taken their scientific approach to this problem and in doing so created a new smart
contract language called Plutus, which builds on the functional programming capabilities
of Haskell, a language used for decades in high assurance industries such as banking
and aerospace. This again gives projects building on top of Cardano (such as Empowa)
confidence that the smart contracts they use will be less likely to experience security
vulnerabilities.

4. African Focus – IOG have indicated that one of their primary objectives for developing
Cardano is to create a decentralised global financial operating system to “bank the
unbanked”. This includes an emphasis on commercial opportunities that IOG are exploring
that will leverage Cardano for blockchain applications in different African nations. It is
expected that following successes in Africa, a similar model can be exported to other
developing countries around the world. This Africa first approach is aligned with Empowa’s
vision for empowering communities through the growth of property based wealth and may
open potential partnership opportunities.

5. Environmental Focus – IOG have suggested that the Cardano blockchain could be million
of times more energy efficient than Bitcoin thanks to its Proof of Stake consensus protocol
that validates transactions based on how many coins are held by a network participant,
rather than the amount of computational processing power they possess. This is seen
as an environmentally friendly and secure alternative and in keeping with Empowa’s
environmental sustainability ethos.

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Tokenomics

The challenge for many projects that utilise a cryptocurrency token is establishing a token
model that properly serves the function of the token and the utility it provides. While most
don’t usually have any difficulty establishing a supply mechanism, many tokens often suffer due
to inadequate demand.

The maximum token supply is also an important consideration, i.e. whether it is fixed or
unfixed. An unfixed supply usually requires a mechanism for “minting” new tokens in exchange
for work proportional to the growth in the ecosystem, stabilising value through supply keeping
pace with demand. This is therefore popular with infrastructure tokens, such as the Ethereum
blockchain layer.

To remove the complexity of managing the process for new token minting, the Empowa token
will have a fixed supply of 200 million, which will all be pre-minted. Their distribution is
described below under Project Funding.

With a fixed supply the value of the token may therefore vary, subject to demand. Given
that there are mechanisms within the Empowa Platform that “lock” EMP tokens against
Empowerment Cards and other smart contracts (e.g. Currency Stabilisers, Insurance/Rewards),
it is anticipated that if the platform becomes successful the token value will increase. This
upward pressure will encourage token holders (particularly those available as returns in
Empowerment Cards) to sell, which will eventually drive the price back down. Also, if the token
value increases, less will be required to fund new property construction projects. This will
decrease demand and therefore also decrease the token’s value.

As exchange rates are tracked as part of the project initiation and Empowerment Card sales,
gains from token price appreciation (over just the addition of tokens from rental returns) can
be calculated. If a Collector therefore chooses to “liquidate” EMP from their cards, a percentage
of the gains (a parameter set in the platform) will be shared with other Participants on those
cards (Land Owners, Tenants), providing further empowerment through shared wealth creation.

Further tokenomics information is available from our website.

Community

The Empowa Community is made up of an ecosystem of customers, developers, partners and

service providers. As the various parties and their roles are being developed, the mechanisms
of governance and reputation will be developed in future phases when some of these initial
complexities and realities have been confronted and addressed.

From day 1 Empowa will have a major focus on building relationships so that everyone’s voice
can help influence how the platform becomes the best possible tool for realising our ultimate
vision of empowering our global community to support each other in restoring human dignity
and protecting our environment so we can all prosper together.

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ROADMAP
The implementation of the Empowa Platform is broken into 3 phases, plus a pre-platform
phase, as follows.

Phase 0 – Pre-Platform Housing

Development Proof of Concept

The success of the Empowa Platform is reliant on those participating having confidence that
on-the-ground delivery of the proposed housing development approach is viable. By working
with a Project Partner and Approved Supplier to prove that a circular, environmentally friendly
and affordable housing project can be implemented, we will demonstrate to those looking to
support the platform build through the token sale and those wishing to use the platform once
complete, that this innovation is achievable.

The successful completion of the Pre-Platform PoC will trigger the token sale and subsequent
project phases.

Phase 1 – Build to Pilot

The initial phase of the Empowa implementation will consist of 3 projects necessary to ensure
the platform and the processes around it are properly tested. This approach is critical to the
success of the platform, as once the opportunity Empowa promises is made available to the
wider community any issue or delays will create frustration in an already frustrated market.

The 3 projects are:

1. Platform Build – All the software required to operate the platform will be implemented and
tested on Cardano testnets before being released to the Cardano mainnet for use in a Proof
of Concept.
2. Platform Proof of Concept – In the PoC, the software components of the platform will be
tested alongside the processes being performed by service providers and other participants.
This will include the construction of real properties using funds raised during the initial
token sale, working with a Project Partner in Mozambique. The end to end testing of
platform interactions (including purchasing of the cards) will be performed by a closed
group to ensure all factors are closely monitored and evaluated.
3. Pilot – Once the platform and processes are deemed to be operating according to
expectation, a limited public release will be performed, whereby real Collectors can
purchase Empowerment Cards. Despite best efforts to address any possible issues prior
to launch, it is not uncommon for issues to only present themselves once a system starts
being used by real users. The Pilot will provide further confidence in the operating model
by extending to 2 additional countries within Africa, allowing adjustments to processes to
be performed if required and helping Empowa to establish a change management process
prior to expanding the platform internationally.

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Preparation of work in each of the above projects may be performed in parallel to allow for
a faster transition from one project to the next. Ongoing software iterations will also be
performed as required (i.e. not just during the Platform Build project) as we transition though
each project and any lessons learned trigger the need for change.

Phase 2 – Open Market

Once the Pilot has successfully demonstrated that the platform can bring together participants
from all around the world to engage in community empowerment projects, Empowa will work
to expand access to the platform to other localities within Africa and globally.

This expansion needs to consider variations in how empowerment projects wish to operate as
well as off-chain legal considerations for other jurisdictions. Other challenges include ensuring
that the platform technology can sufficiently scale to support the growing number of new
participants and potentially enabling more traditional investors access to the platform and
projects that have proven their viability. For example – can the platform support a single large
party who wishes to support one particular project or support existing ongoing projects?

It is during this phase that Empowa will also explore interoperability options, so that the NFTs
that Empowerment Cards are built on can be transferred into other marketplaces if required.
Empowa are already participating in organisations being established to form standards for
NFTs in the Cardano (and other blockchain) ecosystem. Empowa staff are also active members
of the NFT DAO (https://nft-dao.org) and are actively engaging in discussions regarding
interoperability standards, so that we are ready to take advantage of these capabilities as they
evolve.

Phase 3 – Platform Decentralisation

The final phase will take the established and successful platform and apply an additional
layer of empowerment – community operation of the platform itself. This will allow other
organisations to host the software services and collect fees according to how much processing
they contribute.

This phase will be reliant on progress being made in the area of decentralised infrastructure
(such as IPFS), which is still yet to mature enough to support the hosting of enterprise grade
applications. As this is a rapidly evolving space, it is anticipated that once we reach this phase
sufficient progress will have been made to allow the platform to be moved to a suitable
solution.

Decentralised governance will also be introduced to manage changes to the platform (e.g.
voting on changes to platform parameters). While the specifics of the governance process will
be deferred to this phase, given the ongoing refinements and maturity of this process within
the broader blockchain ecosystem, we anticipate being able to leverage the experience of
those that have already demonstrated some success (e.g. governance of the Cardano blockchain
itself). Eligibility to participate in the governance process will most likely be based on the
degree of participation different users of the platform have had leading up to and following
phase 3.

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FUNDING
Following the same fundamental approach that the Empowa Platform provides for empowering
property and wealth creation through decentralised funding, the project will also look to the
community to provide the initial funding required to build the platform.

This will be done through the sale and distribution of the Empowa utility token (EMP). As the
Empowa token will carry value through the Empowa Platform, it is important that the value
of the platform itself as an essential component also be captured in the token. A total of 200
million Empowa tokens (EMP) will be minted for use with the Empowa Platform and distributed
as follows:

Platform Build – 30 million EMP will be sold to fund the building of the Empowa Platform,
marketing campaigns and pilot projects.

Team Allocation – 20 million EMP will be held by the Empowa team for future sale to fund
additional phases and partner development.

Operating Fund – 10 million EMP will be used to support early market liquidity/stability, after
which it is returned to the Housing Projects pool.

Housing Projects – 140 million EMP will be available for purchase by Collectors through the
Empowa Platform following mainnet release at the market rate for their currency at the time
of purchase. Fiat funds collected will be exchanged for stable coins and locked in suitable
Currency Stabiliser smart contracts for use by the platform.

Further token distribution information (including vesting periods) is available from our website.

| White Paper © 2021 Empowa.io 32

CONCLUSION
Empowa is an exciting new model to kickstart property development initiatives in Africa. Those
who work in the sector know and understand that the biggest challenge in this sector is project
initiation. A traditional funding model requires a track record, research to support assumptions
and a clear business plan. In this market segment, all of these elements are a challenge.

New funding models are required that support property development with a start-up mindset.
The lean start-up approach begins with small amounts, tests the market and continuously
adjusts to get to the best solution, building trust with all the parties as these relationships
develop. Empowa supports this supply side model to meet the real needs of this significant
and growing market. It does so in a way that begins to address some of the fundamental
challenges and sustainably empowers all role players.

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DISCLAIMER

This document is created by Empowa for educational and informational purposes only.
The contents of this document are not a financial promotion. None of the information or
analyses presented are intended to form the basis for any investment decision and no specific
recommendations are intended. Therefore, none of the contents of this document serve as an
invitation or inducement to engage in any sort of investment activity. This document is not
intended to be a prospectus, solicitation, inducement or offering for investment or the sale or
issuance of securities or any interests or assets.

The information in this document is given in good faith, but no warranties, guarantees or
representations are made by Empowa with regard to the accuracy, completeness or suitability
of the information presented. Empowa expressly disclaims any and all responsibility, and
Recipients expressly waive any claim, for any direct or consequential loss or damages of any
kind whatsoever (whether foreseeable or not) arising directly or indirectly from: (i) reliance
on any information contained in this document or any information which is made available
in connection with any further inquiries, (ii) any error, omission, or inaccuracy in any such
information, (iii) any action resulting therefrom or (iv) usage or acquisition of products. This
disclaimer applies notwithstanding any negligence, default or lack of care.

Empowa may update, modify or correct this document in its sole discretion, without notice
or incurring any obligation or liability to any recipient hereof. This document is strictly
confidential and intended to be viewed exclusively by those recipients (“Recipient(s)”)
specifically authorized by the Empowa. This document shall not bind, convey any rights,
obligations, terms, performance, covenants, representations or warranties on behalf of the
Empowa to Recipient, or create any relationship between the Empowa and any Recipient or any
other party.

| White Paper © 2021 Empowa.io 34