Africa faces some of the world’s most complex and diverse challenges — from access to healthcare and education to agriculture, financial inclusion, transportation, public services, employment and environmental sustainability.

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to transform how these challenges are addressed.

Your challenge is to identify a real problem affecting people, businesses or communities in Africa and build an AI-powered solution that could make a meaningful difference.

We are not looking for an AI demonstration for the sake of AI.

We want to see technology solving a real problem.

Build a working prototype that uses AI to address a specific African problem.

Your solution should answer three fundamental questions:

1. What problem are you solving?
2. Who benefits from your solution?
3. How does AI make the solution better, faster, cheaper or more accessible?

Your idea can focus on any African country, region or community.

You may choose to address areas such as:

• Healthcare
• Education
• Agriculture and food security
• Financial inclusion
• Small and medium-sized businesses
• Employment and skills development
• Transportation and logistics
• Public services
• Climate change and sustainability
• Energy
• Security and fraud prevention
• Accessibility and inclusion
• Language and communication
• Tourism
• Retail and commerce
• Housing and urban development
• Government and civic services

These are examples only. You are encouraged to identify a problem of your own.

🛠️ Tools & Resources

Feel free to use any LLM or provider you choose.

However, the free tiers from Gemini and Groq are fantastic options to get you building immediately without any cost. Good luck!

Google Gemini

Google provides free access to its Gemini models through Google AI Studio, which is perfect for development and prototyping.

Go to Google AI Studio: Navigate to aistudio.google.com.

• Sign In: Use your Google account to sign in.
• Get API Key: In the studio interface, click on the "Get API Key" button, then "Create API key in new project". Copy your key and save it securely.

Quickstart Tutorial: Follow the official Gemini API Quickstart (https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/quickstart) to make your first API call in minutes.

Groq

Groq offers incredibly fast inference speeds on various open-source models, also with a free tier to get you started.

Go to GroqCloud: Navigate to console.groq.com/keys.

• Sign Up/Log In: Create an account, typically using your Google or GitHub account.
• Create API Key: Once logged in, you'll be on the API Keys page. Click "+ Create API Key", give it a name, and copy the key that appears.

Quickstart Tutorial: Use the official Groq API Quickstart (https://console.groq.com/docs/quickstart) to learn how to make requests with their API.

1. Validated Understanding of the Problem: Present a data backed picture of financial exclusion in your chosen context, highlighting the key challenges, affected populations, and relevant user personas (e.g., market traders, rural farmers, artisans, students).
2. Inclusive Financial Assistant Blueprint: A conceptual design that illustrates how the assistant interacts with users in multiple languages and modes (text, voice, image), and how it interprets and processes inputs. A data pipeline that shows the flow of information from user input to actionable output and how the system accommodates low literacy, multilingual, and multimodal contexts would be great.
3. Demonstrable Prototype: A working model of the assistant showcasing its ability to handle everyday financial tasks and at least one extended functionality (e.g., financial literacy guidance, agricultural payments, or school fee reminders). The prototype could reflect the blueprint’s principles and demonstrate usability, trust, and accessibility for low-digital-literacy users.
4. Scalability and Impact Vision: A strategy outlining how the solution could be adopted, integrated, and scaled within banks, fintechs, telcos, or community-based organizations. This could also consider potential impacts on financial inclusion, as well as trust, privacy, and security safeguards.

1. Financial Inclusion: Banking Iya Bolanle

Background

Financial exclusion remains a significant challenge across Africa. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 49% of adults own an account, with disparities ranging from 6% in South Sudan to 91% in Mauritius. Mobile money services like M-Pesa in Kenya and MoMo in Ghana have demonstrated the transformative power of digital financial services. For instance, Ghana's mobile money transactions reached GH¢1.912 trillion in 2023, a 78.7% increase from 2022. Despite these advancements, many individuals, especially in rural areas, still face barriers due to language, literacy, and digital infrastructure gaps.

Objective

• Design and prototype an inclusive financial assistant that:
• Enables underserved individuals to perform essential financial tasks such as transfers, balance checks, airtime/data purchases, bill payments, and micro-savings.
• Communicates naturally in English, Pidgin, and/or major African languages relevant to the chosen context (e.g., Yoruba, Hausa, Swahili, Twi).
• Supports multiple interaction modes — text, voice, and possibly image (e.g., a user uploading a bill for payment).
• Extends beyond banking to cover other everyday needs such as financial education, agriculture payments, or government service access.
• Builds trust and usability for people with limited digital literacy.