# Zcash Early Builders Lab (ZEBL) Cape Town

**URL:** <https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-early-builders-lab-zebl-cape-town/58204>\
**Category:** Community Grants\
**Created:** [October 14, 2026, 8:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-early-builders-lab-zebl-cape-town/58204 "2026-10-14T20:13:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![thabo-zebl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3bc359/32.png) [@thabo-zebl](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/u/thabo-zebl)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2026, 8:13pm UTC](https://forum.zcashcommunity.com/t/zcash-early-builders-lab-zebl-cape-town/58204/1 "2026-10-14T20:13:27Z")

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Hello everyone,

We are excited to share our official proposal for **ZEBL Cape Town (Zcash Early Builders Lab)** with the Zcash community!

Building on our team’s active presence and track record in the South African tech ecosystem, **ZEBL Cape Town** is a 3-month targeted developer activation initiative designed to onboard **80+ young builders and developers (ages 16–22)** directly into the Zcash ecosystem.

Our primary goal is to establish a sustainable, open-source pipeline of young developers in South Africa by focusing on hands-on testnet wallet configuration, zero-knowledge (zk-SNARK) concepts, shielded transactions, and building real prototype applications.

**ZEBL Cape Town Key Highlights:**

- **Target Audience:** 80+ high school upperclassmen and university STEM/computer science students in Cape Town.
- **Core Format:** 2-day intensive workshop, mini-hackathon, with 30-day virtual follow-up cohort (Young Builders Circle) to ensure long-term retention.
- **100% Testnet Safe** : All coding exercises, wallet generation and shielded transactions are run only on the Zcash Testnet (𝑇𝐴𝑍).
- Open-Source Impact: Development of a fully documented reusable curriculum repository (MIT-licensed) published directly to GitHub for other Zcash chapters around the world to fork and deploy.

**Core Target Metrics**

- **60+** Active Testnet Wallets Booted and Connected through lightwalletd.
- **150+** Shielded -to- transactions with encrypted memos.
- **10+** Student open source github repositories with working prototype apps
- **30-Day Retention** : Engaged and tracked code commits with the Young Builders Circle cohort.

**GitHub Grant Application:**

You can review our full grant application here:

**[ZEBL Cape Town: Zcash Early Builders Lab · Issue #493 · ZcashCommunityGrants/zcashcommunitygrants](https://github.com/ZcashCommunityGrants/zcashcommunitygrants/issues/493)**

We welcome any feedback, questions, or suggestions from the community and look forward to your input!

Thank you,

**Thabo Makoena & The ZEBL Cape Town Team**

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