How Daniel Anomfueme helped build the first decentralised science community in Africa

Daniel Anomfueme’s tech journey didn’t start with an immediate love for coding. As a boy who couldn’t afford comic books, he turned to Wikipedia to read Superman and Batman stories. His first laptop, a gift from his dad in 2011, became a window to Cartoon Network, where he spent hours playing Ben 10 and Danny Phantom games.

His first real introduction to tech came in 2017 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. A friend from primary school mentioned he was learning to code. Anomfueme didn’t even know what coding was. “What is code?” he asked. That question led him to the university’s innovation centre and the Google Developer Students Club, where he discovered Figma, JavaScript, and the full spectrum of frontend and backend development. Suddenly, tech wasn’t just games and curiosity; it was a career path.

By 2018, he’d enrolled in the Andela ALC Android Developers track. But he had a problem. His childhood laptop had died. When his mum bought him a new one, he made her a promise: “The next laptop I own, I’ll buy with my own money.”

He kept that promise. 

Anomfueme spent the next three years embedded in campus tech communities. He was part of the GDSC core team through three leadership transitions. In 2020, he led Ingressive for Good’s first circle at UNN. By year’s end, his circle ranked second out of more than 40 across Nigeria. He won best ambassador.

These were his training grounds for what came next.

Building DeSci Africa

Anomfueme entered the decentralised science field in 2021 through VitaDAO, scrolling through Twitter the way chronically online people do. DeSci sits at the intersection of blockchain and scientific research. Think decentralised finance, but for science funding, research publishing, and intellectual property.

The problem became obvious quickly. Nobody in Africa knew what he was talking about.

In 2022, he wanted to attend a conference in Kenya to discuss decentralised science. His team’s response was blunt: they couldn’t justify the spend. No return on investment. No conversation happening around DeSci in Africa.

That rejection sparked DeSci Africa.

With persistence and grit, Anomfueme is becoming a leading voice in DeSci. He has since spoken and led international blockchain events, including ETH Safari in Kenya and Web3 Afrika in Lagos, with thousands of attendees.

He targeted university students, particularly final years. These students faced the problems DeSci could solve firsthand. They hit paywalls on Google Scholar and ResearchGate whilst accessing papers for their projects. They understood immediately why decentralised, open access to research mattered.

The strategy worked. DeSci Africa has now trained hundreds of scientists and created the first decentralised science community on the continent.

The community hasn’t just been theoretical. Borderless Science, one of their partner organisations, launched an AI agent for herbal drug research last month. The tool focuses on localised research relevant to African populations. Generic AI models train on datasets that don’t reflect African biology or health challenges. This agent changes that.

DeSci Nigeria built a blockchain repository where students can publish research abstracts and papers. They’ve published over 15 works so far. The blockchain provides transparent ownership records and eliminates intellectual property theft concerns.

Anomfueme has also published over 40 articles explaining decentralised science on the DeSci Africa blog. The goal is simple: break down the jargon, make the technology understandable, and show people how to get involved.

Early years at VitaDAO

Anomfueme spent three years at VitaDAO, from November 2021 to November 2024. He worked in the coordination working group, interfacing between tech products, governance, and tokenomics squads.

The achievement that stands out: helping raise $4.1 million in funding, with Pfizer leading the round. For a pharmaceutical giant to back a tech startup is rare. But VitaDAO was building something genuinely novel.

He led the product squad that launched VitaDAO Global, a platform now serving over 11,000 users. It gives DAO members access to pooled services and perks like discounts on health tests. The challenge was building something with no template. Most DAOs didn’t have member platforms back then. They had to invent as they went.

At VitaDAO, Anomfueme worked with IP-NFTs (intellectual property non-fungible tokens). These aren’t the pictures NFTs people associate with crypto hype. They’re proof of ownership for intellectual property stored on the blockchain. Four people can create a product, tokenise the IP, and raise funds by distributing fractions to community members. It’s real-world asset tokenisation applied to research and innovation.

The long game

Anomfueme has a pet peeve about how people approach Web3: they come for the money.

“Everyone wants to earn a living, which is fine,” he says. “But people need to understand beyond the financial aspect.”

When he started in tech, he didn’t know what salaries looked like. He and his friends were young men on campus who liked gadgets. They built weather apps on Flutter, laptops overheating from the strain. They did it because it was fun.

His advice is straightforward. Learn a skill. Find a niche. Don’t rely on trading.

And stop waiting to be spoon-fed. The information is out there. Use Google. Use ChatGPT. Ask AI to explain things like you’re five years old. Do your own research. People lie online. You need to verify things yourself.

He finds the jargon frustrating too. Many Web3 projects overcomplicate their messaging with technical language aimed at venture capitalists. It alienates ordinary people who could benefit from the technology.

Anomfueme’s vision for DeSci Africa is to cultivate more builders. The challenge, he says, is that DeSci is different. People won’t start building until they understand it. That’s why DeSci Africa focuses first on education, then on understanding. Once those foundations are set, the ideas follow.

He wants to see startups emerging from the community—maybe even a unicorn. Partnerships with government agencies, particularly in healthcare infrastructure, are part of the plan. Zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows someone to verify a document without exposing its contents, has huge potential for securing health data. Applied across Africa, it could transform privacy and data management.

For Anomfueme, building these systems is part of a long game. He’s constructing the infrastructure for Africa’s scientific future, one step at a time. And he’s doing it with the same principle that brought him here: go deep, stay curious, and don’t wait for permission to start.