Progress Ochuko Eyaadah is building the blockchain infrastructure Africa’s payments problem deserves and teaching women to do the same

Progress Ochuko is building blockchain systems that make investing more accessible in Africa, while mentoring young women to move from curiosity to active participation in Web3.

Progress Ochuko Eyaadah did not grow up tinkering with computers or writing code. In fact, she had her first phone only during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world came to a standstill and, as she puts it, there was “nothing to do and nowhere to go.”

What she chose to do with that time is what now sets her apart.

Today, Ochuko is a senior blockchain engineer at Toyow and also a developer relations mentor at Women in DeFi, a pan-African non-profit organisation empowering women in blockchain and decentralised finance. 

She is also an active contributor to the Stellar blockchain ecosystem and has mentored emerging developers across Africa. Through her work, she is helping bridge the infrastructure gap that has long held back Africa’s digital payments landscape.

Engineering trust in an untrusted system

At her core, Ochuko is a builder. Her work revolves around designing blockchain systems that make complex human and financial interactions transparent, secure, and efficient, qualities in short supply across many African markets.

Her role at Toyow, a platform that tokenises real-world assets, goes far beyond writing smart contracts. She designs entire frameworks that allow people from both traditional (Web2) and blockchain (Web3) spaces to participate in wealth creation.

“If you’re coming from Web2, you can fund your wallet with fiat,” she explains. “If you’re from Web3, you can use stablecoins or our native token. The idea is to make asset ownership and investment accessible to everyone.”

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