Art’s valuable digital future, a recent boom in NFT sales and blockchain with an important role in preserving an artist’s legacy.



“The first thing I tell people when I&#8217;m talking to them about NFTs and cryptoart is ‘don’t overthink it’. When I first entered the space, I didn&#8217;t fully understand what I was doing. I had to learn by doing,” says Nigerian-born Prince&nbsp;Jacon&nbsp;Osinachi, a self-taught digital artist who found his voice using Microsoft Word.



Years before NFTs became a thing, Osinachi entered the cryptoart space in 2017 when he discovered the R.A.R.E Art&nbsp;platform.



“As an artist, I wanted to show my work beyond Instagram. I wanted to reach a wider audience,” he explains. “They were talking about something called cryptoart which means you put your art on the blockchain. A lot of people get to see it and you also get the chance to sell it.”



NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a way of buying or selling anything digital – like art – using cryptocurrency. As little as four years ago, people were not collecting art on the blockchain but Osinachi saw its potential and the following year, his work was taken to&nbsp;Ethereal Summit (where Edward Snowden was a key speaker this May).&nbsp;



“The current hype we&#8217;ve seen in the NFT space started around late 2019 when people started paying attention to, and collecting cryptoart. The pandemic helped to boost this because people weren’t going to physical galleries. The blockchain became a space where people could converge and look at good art.”



Osinachi is currently hosting virtual workshops to help onboard African artists into the cryptoart space. He believes that while the NFT space will co-exist with traditional art going forward, blockchain has an important role in preserving an artist’s legacy.



“The space is growing. I wouldn’t say that in its entirety it is going to be the future of art, but for artists like myself, it is something that has changed digital arts. People can now collect digital art, as opposed to copying and pasting it and then claiming that they own it,” he adds.



“The metadata on the ownership is on the blockchain – this means there&#8217;s provable scarcity which makes it a valuable. For digital artists, it’s a big leap.”



Using digital art marketplaces like SuperRare, Osinachi has managed to sell his work to global collectors, many of whom are anonymous. The beauty of blockchain is that when Osinachi’s art moves from one buyer to another, as a creator, he is always aware of this exchange and his royalty fee of 10% is ensured for life, no matter how much a piece sells for. For a collector, an NFT doesn’t necessarily mean owning the art, rather the payment is for the metadata and this opens up the possibility of reselling the NFT at a later stage for more money.



“Whoever gets to buy the art doesn’t get to lock it up like they do in the traditional art world. Anybody can see it and know that this wallet address owns this work. And in terms of teaching African history, anybody can have access to it,” explains Osinachi.



Not just making money, but digitizing art history



For Osinachi, there is far more to the blockchain than the world of finance, cryptocurrency. While the recent boom in NFT sales has seen many artists considering minting their creations, it has also led to social change – the ability to preserve art history previously stored in physical archives.



Mohamed Amin’s historical Camerapix collection, for example, contains 2.5 million still photographs and 6,000 hours of raw video footage capturing African history. Considered one of the world’s greatest unexplored historical archives, it contains images of the events surrounding post-colonial Africa, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Amin’s son, Salim Amin, has been working tirelessly to categorize and digitize this collection and ultimately bring it into a format that is presentable to the world – onto Ethereum.



“When this whole NFT craze started, a lot of artists saw it as a way to make money. What it really is, is a new technology that will unlock many new monetization models, not just for artists. It’s a way to craft a story,” says Andrew Berkowitz, the project lead for $Afrofuture, an Ethereum-based social currency looking to unlock new funding for African creatives.



“Blockchain is a whole new model for how we can take these archives and start to really roll them out into the world in a way that catalyses conversations and creates a community.”



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:44% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="681" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-1024x681.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51865 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Osinachi2-2048x1362.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The current hype we&#8217;ve seen in the NFT space started around late 2019 when people started paying attention to, and collecting cryptoart.” – Prince&nbsp;Jacon&nbsp;Osinachi, digital artist</blockquote>
</div></div>



Working closely with Camerapix and The Mohammed Amin Foundation, Berkowitz is exploring new ways for historical archives to be presented to the world (and monetized). He’s created something called the Genesis NFT Drop where five, rare images from Amin’s archive will be up for auction every quarter as NFTs. The proceeds from each sale will be used to commission African artists, provide grants to museums to help them preserve their content digitally and train local archivists. (Currently, The Mohamed Amin Foundation flies in archivists from Europe, the United States and the United Kingdom to Nairobi to store content and retrieve metadata.)



“We&#8217;ve digitized whatever we can with the resources that we have, but we&#8217;ve only scratched the surface,” says Amin’s son Salim, the chairman of Camerapix and The Mohamed Amin Foundation.



“NFTs are a new platform but for us, it&#8217;s another opportunity to be able to showcase the work, hopefully raise some money, train young Africans across the continent into being good archivists and preserving our content, our storytelling, and not lose this very precious history that we have.”



“And we want this to serve as a new model because there&#8217;s plenty of these historical archives all over the world… it&#8217;s a way to use this new technology and it&#8217;s not just about making money. Our aim to change the way African history is taught and appreciated across the world,” adds Berkowitz.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51866 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Andrew-B-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“What blockchain really is, is a new technology that will unlock many new monetization models, not just for artists.” – Andrew Berkowitz, the project lead for $Afrofuture, an Ethereum-based social currency looking to unlock new funding for African creatives</blockquote>
</div></div>



From Momint, a new South African social media marketplace where creators can sell their works as NFTs, to the Worldart gallery in Cape Town launching its first NFT gallery auction by local artist Norman O’Flynn, the local NFT scene is only getting bigger.



Says Osinachi: “We&#8217;re only just scratching the surface in terms of what the blockchain can do for us. Whatever you can think of, the blockchain is there to help and as time goes on, we&#8217;re going to be seeing some interesting use cases arise.”



By Tiana Cline

NFT CryptoArt display in art gallery

Why NFTs Are Having An Arty Moment

Blockchain technology is also revolutionizing supply chains in the pharmaceutical industry, in the process, helping track fake medicines. 



From genomics to robotics, technology is truly revolutionizing
the healthcare sector. And while it’s easy to become consumed by exciting,
futuristic trends like artificial intelligence (AI) diagnosis, digitized
patient records and 3D-printed medical tools, technology is also transforming
the pharmaceutical industry. How medication is prescribed, dispensed and
administered is big business with McKinsey predicting the value of Africa’s
pharmaceutical industry to be $65 billion in 2020.



But fake drugs are an ongoing and complex issue – they can
cause death, have unknown side-effects, fail to treat illnesses, and sometimes
even add to the spread of disease. According to World Health Organization (WHO)
statistics, 42% of detected cases of falsified (or substandard) pharmaceuticals
occur in Africa – reports estimate that between 72,000 and 169,000 children die
each year from pneumonia because of counterfeit antibiotics while fake malaria
drugs cause an additional 64,000 –158,000 deaths every year in sub-Saharan
Africa. Both antimalarials and antibiotics sit among the most commonly-reported
counterfeited drugs.



“Fake medicine distribution is rampant because business
processes are siloed between the various industry stakeholders, which puts the
industry at risk of fraud,” explains Heidi Patmore, a marketing consultant
specializing in technology that’s changing consumer behavior. 



“One solution to this would be cross-company process
automation which could easily be enabled by a blockchain data interchange. This
creates an open information system that all players can use to verify the
authenticity of medication because it can track and trace it from when it’s
manufactured to when it is dispensed to the patient.”



Companies such as IBM and SAP are working on blockchain
solutions to weed out Africa’s counterfeit medication network. When medicine is
returned to pharmaceutical manufacturers, for example, it is often re-sold
instead of being destroyed. How can a small local pharmacy ensure what is
returned is authentic? SAP are working with their existing client base – Merck,
GSK, Ingelheim, McKesson and others – on a blockchain project to verify that
any returned drugs are original. 



IBM Research’s solution for Africa (currently in development
in Haifa, Israel) includes a mobile interface and permissioned blockchain
backend that enables each certified and authorized party in the network to
initiate action, finish their transaction, and track its progress. 



“It also includes the monitoring of temperature to ensure
compliance with the proper conditions for transportation and asset transfer,”
adds Inna Skarbovsky, a blockchain architect from IBM Research – Haifa.
“Blockchain ensures full provenance for each medicine package, uniquely
identified with a barcode or a serial number. This makes it possible for all
authorized parties to track the drugs through the entire supply chain and the
drugs’ life-cycle.”



This also allows significant cost reductions by eliminating each participant’s need to manage a separate system for traceability of its components. “It also improves procedural efficiency for change-of-hands, make it much harder for counterfeit drugs to be introduced into the supply chain and to be distributed to end-users,” says Skarbovsky.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IMG_20190927_124217-1-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42537"/><figcaption> Towett Ngetich, CEO of Uthabiti Health, a Kenya-based pharmaceutical company </figcaption></figure>



Towett Ngetich is the CEO of Uthabiti Health, a Kenya-based pharmaceutical company that has implemented blockchain to bring transparency and accountability back to a country where statistics show that 30% of medicines sold are counterfeit. Uthabiti, which means ‘verify’ in Swahili, was started after Ngetich’s first-hand experience with the effects of fake health products: “Back in university, a significant number of students fell victim to unplanned pregnancies and unsafe abortions. With deep research, it was uncovered that there had been a supply of fake contraceptives and backstreet abortion pills into the student market,” explains Ngetich. More findings showed the presence of fake antibiotics, antiretrovirals (ARVs) and non-communicable diseases (NCD) medicines in the Kenyan pharmaceutical supply chain. 



“Pharmaceutical science is the center of healthcare – one
mistake in any drug composition or formulation has the risk of endangering a
significant number of people. The need to access safe, affordable and quality
health products in its simplest form means life and death in diagnosed health complications.
Blockchain gives patients the ability to track and trace products using
attached IDs – it also gives Uthabiti Health the ability to know where all our
health products sit within each supply chain,” he says. Uthabiti Health
procures medicines from different pharmaceutical manufacturers. Once received,
they go to an internal laboratory for quality testing and are then labeled with
the product’s safety lab report – attached in their codes is a unique
blockchain ID. The medicines are then passed on to their partnering retail
points, ensuring that the medicines dispensed to patients can be verified with
something as simple as a text message. 



“This brings in consumers in safe-proofing the supply chain
of pharmaceuticals,” adds Ngetich. 



The proliferation of fake drugs throughout Africa is complex
– on average, medicine changes 30 hands before reaching the destined pharmacy –
but blockchain technology has great potential to help stop counterfeit medicine
distribution because it brings traceability and trackability to the entire
pharmaceutical supply chain, ensuring the immutability of information.&nbsp; 



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Blockchain ethics?</h4>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="709" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-709x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-42533" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-709x1024.jpg 709w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-300x433.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-600x867.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-208x300.jpg 208w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-768x1110.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC-1063x1536.jpg 1063w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CandicedC.jpg 1329w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px" /><figcaption>Candice De Carvalho</figcaption></figure>



While blockchain is still a relatively niche technology, it is slowly changing how organizations operate. Blockchain promises better security and transparency, but not necessarily for the customer, in the case of drug allocation: “Where blockchain technology could likely increase efficiency and simultaneously decrease the abuse of medicines, customers benefit. The pharmaceutical and related industries are unique however, in that the ‘consumer’ is also a patient – a vulnerable group with special needs and rights,” explains Candice De Carvalho, the founder of Easy Ethics CPD.



Although overall transparency in the supply chain increases
through the use of blockchain, and this confers patient benefits, these must be
weighed against patient privacy and confidentiality.&nbsp; 



“With emerging technologies more freely available, we’ve
observed an interesting shift in patient behavior, where data privacy is
regarded less as an absolute by patients, in favor of a kind of sliding scale,
where privacy itself is a currency that purchases medical benefits along the
way,” adds De Carvalho. “Patients, for the right benefits, are perhaps more willing
to part with some privacy privileges.”



De Carvalho questions the genuine knowledge that patients
have of any exposure they experience through their use of novel medical device
or systems innovations. The key drivers for the business are not necessarily
unified with the total needs of the patient. However, the more the technology
owners protect and balance the patient’s need for confidentiality and consent,
the more they will ultimately see business benefit.&nbsp; 



“In the context of a doctor-patient relationship, the doctor has a positive duty to enhance patient understanding so that the patient enjoys a truly informed consent. Does this then mean that technology providers are now responsible in the same way that medical health workers are?” she ends.



-Tiana Cline

Tag: Blockchain technology

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Why NFTs Are Having An Arty Moment

Cure For Counterfeit Drugs?