{
  "name": "Edidiong Umana",
  "alias": "Defi Messiah",
  "headline": "AI builder, technical workshop facilitator and Celo Regional Ambassador for Africa. Builds multi-agent orchestrations and agentic payment systems.",
  "location": {
    "city": "Lagos",
    "country": "NG",
    "timezone": "Africa/Lagos"
  },
  "contact": {
    "work_email": "edidiong.umana@celo.org",
    "x": "https://x.com/defimessiah1",
    "github": "https://github.com/eddiemessiah",
    "telegram": "https://t.me/defimessiah0x"
  },
  "site": "/",
  "roles": [
    {
      "org": "Celo",
      "title": "Regional Ambassador, Africa",
      "team": "Celo Core Co. DevRel",
      "since": "2026-04",
      "current": true
    },
    {
      "org": "Declan Work",
      "title": "Founder",
      "since": "2023-06",
      "current": true
    },
    {
      "org": "Alte Island",
      "title": "Lead Product Engineer",
      "since": "2026-03",
      "current": true,
      "location": "Berlin, hybrid"
    },
    {
      "org": "Nigeria Blockchain Week",
      "title": "Partnership Manager",
      "since": "2025-10",
      "current": true
    },
    {
      "org": "Ethereum Nigeria",
      "title": "Program Manager & DevRel Lead",
      "since": "2026-01",
      "current": true,
      "commitment": "part-time"
    }
  ],
  "capabilities": [
    "multi-agent orchestration (OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, NanoClaw) on cloud VPS",
    "open-source model hosting with Ollama",
    "agentic payments: x402, MCP servers, EIP-3009 gasless settlement, ERC-8004 identity",
    "MiniPay Mini Apps and Telegram agents",
    "developer relations, hackathons and founder programs across Africa",
    "product engineering and delivery"
  ],
  "projects": [
    {
      "name": "Omni402",
      "summary": "x402 gateway + MCP server that makes any HTTP API payable by AI agents; gasless USDC settlement proven on Celo mainnet",
      "proof": {
        "tx": "0xf6f71df2f84279c483b138a43c8adcfcd7c1e319459f2b1b2497cdb706a38b38",
        "block": 74479633,
        "erc8004_agent": "https://8004scan.io/agents/celo/9765"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "AskBots",
      "url": "https://askbots.ai",
      "summary": "contributed to the redesign for Celo; shipped quality gates and leaderboard fixes for an agent Q&A marketplace"
    },
    {
      "name": "Padi & Oga",
      "url": "https://github.com/eddiemessiah/celo-agent-hackathon",
      "summary": "x402 pay-per-request agents on Celo"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ajo Circle",
      "url": "https://github.com/eddiemessiah/ajo-circle",
      "summary": "Telegram rotating-savings agent with stablecoin payments"
    },
    {
      "name": "PulseRemit",
      "summary": "Honourable Mention, Celo Build AI Agents for the Real World hackathon"
    },
    {
      "name": "TurfRun & CityQuest",
      "summary": "geolocation MiniPay Mini Apps"
    }
  ],
  "track_record": {
    "events_spoken": "25+",
    "developer_workshops": "11+",
    "celo_proof_of_ship_projects_first_two_months": 22,
    "developers_onboarded_to_base": 75,
    "sui_local_deployment_increase": "45%"
  },
  "stack": {
    "harnesses": [
      "OpenClaw",
      "Hermes Agent",
      "NanoClaw",
      "Ollama",
      "Claude Code",
      "Google Cloud"
    ],
    "agent_protocols": [
      "x402",
      "ERC-8004",
      "MCP",
      "Self"
    ],
    "chains": [
      "Celo",
      "Ethereum",
      "Base",
      "Optimism",
      "Lisk",
      "Sui"
    ],
    "build": [
      "Solidity",
      "TypeScript",
      "Next.js",
      "viem",
      "Foundry",
      "Hardhat"
    ]
  },
  "speaking": [
    {
      "event": "Café Cursor Lagos",
      "date": "2026-04-25",
      "role": "speaker and hackathon judge",
      "audience": "300+ in person"
    },
    {
      "event": "Enugu Tech Fest",
      "date": "2025-05",
      "role": "guest speaker",
      "audience": "15,000 attendees"
    }
  ],
  "services": [
    "Technical workshops and facilitation (conference workshops, bootcamps, curriculum design)",
    "Talks, panels and content (keynotes, livestreams, podcast hosting)",
    "DevRel and ecosystem programs (builder programs, hackathon judging and mentoring)",
    "Agentic builds (multi-agent orchestration, MCP servers, x402 payments)",
    "AI and Web3 product builds (frontend prototypes, MiniPay Mini Apps)"
  ],
  "direction": {
    "next_2_years": "AI engineer and frontend engineer",
    "next_3_years": "ethical, responsible AI work in Africa",
    "researching": "inference engineering"
  },
  "sessions": [
    {
      "show": "CeloIQ Sessions · ep. 01",
      "title": "MoniPay: building an AI-powered social payment layer on Celo",
      "role": "host",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn0MKMfUli0"
    },
    {
      "show": "Based Conversations · ep. 02",
      "title": "Base as a superhighway",
      "role": "host",
      "url": "https://youtu.be/KetvZ4V2mYo"
    },
    {
      "show": "Based Conversations · ep. 01",
      "title": "Builders on the Base ecosystem",
      "role": "host",
      "url": "https://youtu.be/XiPEWjg-RkQ"
    },
    {
      "show": "Clockwise podcast · Netisens ICT",
      "title": "Navigating the Web3 landscape",
      "role": "guest",
      "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoJJ5fAIQPU"
    },
    {
      "show": "Celo × Web3phc · X Space",
      "title": "Exploring Proof of Ship on Celo and building real-world ideas in MiniPay",
      "role": "speaker",
      "url": "https://x.com/defimessiah1"
    }
  ],
  "study_group": {
    "name": "AI Study Group",
    "url": "academy/",
    "description": "A free, self-paced academy for learning AI engineering together, led by Edidiong Umana, growing into an open school for AI engineers.",
    "tracks": [
      {
        "code": "T1",
        "title": "Agentic AI engineer roadmap",
        "status": "open"
      },
      {
        "code": "T2",
        "title": "Ethical AI in Africa",
        "status": "open"
      },
      {
        "code": "T3",
        "title": "Inference engineering basics",
        "status": "open"
      },
      {
        "code": "T4",
        "title": "Onchain agents on Celo",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T5",
        "title": "Harness engineering",
        "status": "open"
      },
      {
        "code": "T6",
        "title": "The agentic economy",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T7",
        "title": "Python and ML foundations",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T8",
        "title": "Evals and observability",
        "status": "open"
      },
      {
        "code": "T9",
        "title": "AI security and red-teaming",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T10",
        "title": "Voice agents",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T11",
        "title": "Open models and fine-tuning",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T12",
        "title": "Retrieval and knowledge engineering",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T13",
        "title": "AI products and founders",
        "status": "coming"
      },
      {
        "code": "T14",
        "title": "African language AI",
        "status": "coming"
      }
    ],
    "faculties": [
      {
        "name": "Foundations",
        "tracks": [
          "T7"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Build",
        "tracks": [
          "T1",
          "T5",
          "T10",
          "T12"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Run",
        "tracks": [
          "T8",
          "T11",
          "T3"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Pay",
        "tracks": [
          "T6",
          "T4",
          "T13"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Care",
        "tracks": [
          "T2",
          "T9",
          "T14"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "paths": [
      {
        "name": "Agent engineer",
        "tracks": [
          "T1",
          "T5",
          "T8",
          "T9"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Onchain agent builder",
        "tracks": [
          "T1",
          "T6",
          "T4",
          "T9"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Voice agent engineer",
        "tracks": [
          "T1",
          "T10",
          "T14",
          "T8"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Model engineer",
        "tracks": [
          "T7",
          "T11",
          "T3",
          "T8"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "AI founder",
        "tracks": [
          "T1",
          "T13",
          "T6",
          "T2"
        ]
      },
      {
        "name": "Responsible AI lead",
        "tracks": [
          "T2",
          "T9",
          "T14",
          "T8"
        ]
      }
    ],
    "direction": "The plan is to publish the curriculum as open source, so anyone can reuse it, fix it or teach from it.",
    "format": [
      "numbered lessons with inline checks",
      "server-graded phase quizzes",
      "XP, levels and weekly streaks",
      "Explorer, Scholar and Builder certificates"
    ],
    "certificates": "Soulbound tokens on Celo, one per learner, track and tier, once the certificate contract is live.",
    "cost": "free"
  }
}