South Africa will be hosting the third annual Blockchain Africa Conference to be held in Johannesburg on 1-3 March 2017, which will bring together a diverse range of experts to discuss all the opportunities, challenges and exciting possibilities in innovation and disruption that can be leveraged in Africa using blockchain technology.

According to the conference website, the conference follows the successful completion of the Bitcoin & Blockchain Africa Conference in 2015 in Cape Town and its second conference in 2016 in Johannesburg.  The conference seeks blockchain as a means to improve their existing services, systems, and products by leveraging its key features like security, transparency, full life-cycle transaction history, real-time, cost-efficiency, among others.

Ian Merrington, CEO of Cape Innovation Technology Initiative (CITI) will be the Master of Ceremonies for the Blockchain Africa Conference 2017. He has been a well-known thought leader in the South African blockchain community. Ian will be a key conference speaker along with Nicole Anderson, CEO & co-founder of London-based, FinTech Circle Innovate.

“Now in its third year, this conference has rapidly developed into the leading Blockchain conference in Africa and the go-to event for full immersion in global blockchain trends and use cases. The quality of the speakers has been widely acknowledged as being one of the best events of its kind, globally. This conference is unique in its convergence of global trends with African use cases and opportunities," Ian said in a release.

Nicole will be speaking about investors’ role in the blockchain and their impact on global innovation. The speakers will also address the opportunities that exist for using smart contracts and distributed ledger technology in finance, insurance, and supply chain management, amongst others. Apart from the conference, there will be a workshop on the 1st March 2017 that aims to provide training on blockchain and digital currencies.

The standard tickets for the conference are open now, which is priced at South African Rand 3,500. There are also separate workshop ticket and a startup ticket for companies and firms that wish to take part.