EdgeChain Insights #4: From Mbare's Mesh Network to Farmer-Owned Infrastructure
In 2019, we proved communities will build infrastructure they own. But the tokens lived inside our app, ownership wasn't real. Five years later, blockchain has matured. Now we can build what we envisioned.
Originally published: September 29, 2025
Looking Back: Mbare, 2019
In 2019, I worked with colleagues including Tatenda Zifudzi and St. Peter's IoT Makerspace to tackle a concrete problem: internet in Mbare, Zimbabwe, was too expensive for ordinary households.
Together with the Internet Society Zimbabwe Chapter and IAmMbare Youth Centre, we piloted an offline-first, incentivized internet sharing network during the Internet Society Chapterthon hackathon.
The concept was straightforward: one community hub had uncapped internet, but most households had none. Could we share that bandwidth across Mbare affordably while rewarding contributors for their participation?
How the Incentivized Mesh Worked
At the core was HypeLabs' HOP SDK, a peer-to-peer protocol allowing devices to connect directly via WiFi Direct and Bluetooth. This enabled Mbare residents to form a mesh network, relaying traffic from device to device until it reached the internet gateway.
To make participation sustainable, we designed and explored an incentive layer:
- Token rewards: Users who relayed traffic earned tokens, compensating them for battery, CPU, and memory usage.
- Local caching: Raspberry Pi clusters served as local content caches, reducing costs and keeping educational material available offline.
- Mobile access: A mobile app gave people access to cached content and the ability to connect through the mesh when online resources were needed.
The hackathon proved the model worked. Residents understood the value exchange and were willing to participate when fairly compensated.
What We Learned: The Missing Piece
The limitation of our 2019 pilot became clear quickly: the tokens lived only inside our app.
- Users couldn't truly own them.
- They couldn't trade them outside our system.
- They lost access if we shut down.
The rewards were real, but the ownership wasn't.
This wasn't intentional—blockchain infrastructure simply wasn't mature enough for low-income communities in Zimbabwe. Transaction costs were high, blockchain UX was terrible, and we lacked the expertise to build it properly.
But we proved something invaluable: with the right incentives, communities will build and maintain their own infrastructure. They don't need aid dependency—they need ownership.
From Urban Connectivity to Agricultural Intelligence
Since 2019, HypeLabs has evolved into Uplink, positioning itself in the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) space.
DePIN may be a new term, but the idea is exactly what we explored in Mbare: communities building and monetizing infrastructure through token incentives.
EdgeChain applies this same principle—from urban bandwidth sharing to agriculture:
| Mbare (2019) | EdgeChain (2025) |
|---|---|
| Shared resource: Internet connectivity | Shared resources: IoT sensor data, edge compute, federated learning participation |
| App-internal credits | Blockchain-verified smart contracts |
| Centralized shutdown risk | True ownership at scale |
By transforming soil readings, environmental data, and local agricultural knowledge into blockchain-verified contributions, EdgeChain enables farmers to own their data and monetize it sustainably.
Why It Matters Now
The journey from Mbare's pilot to EdgeChain reflects five years of learning:
What we proved in 2019: Communities will participate in infrastructure ownership if fairly compensated.
What we couldn't solve then: True ownership requires blockchain, and blockchain wasn't ready.
What's different now: Blockchain has matured. Platforms like Cardano offer low transaction costs, formal verification for security, and governance tools that enable democratic control.
We can finally build what we envisioned.
From Proof of Concept to Production
The Mbare project was a hackathon experiment. It didn't scale beyond its pilot phase—and that's normal for proofs of concept.
But it taught us what works:
- Communities understand value exchange.
- They'll maintain infrastructure they own.
- They don't need intermediaries if given the right tools.
EdgeChain takes those lessons and adds what was missing:
- Blockchain infrastructure for true ownership.
- Federated learning for privacy-preserving AI.
- Progressive governance structures to build capacity over time.
The people who generate value—whether bandwidth in Mbare or agricultural intelligence in Manicaland—should capture that value.
In 2019, we proved the concept. In 2025, we're building the system.