Yango Fellowship Brings 24 Young African Innovators Together in Abidjan

A Pan-African technology fellowship has brought together 24 young innovators from six countries to present projects aimed at practical problems in transport, health, finance, employment, waste management and water access.

The Yango Fellowship 2026 concluded with a two-day graduation programme and Pitch Day in Abidjan. The cohort included participants from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Mozambique, selected from more than 600 applicants. Over 12 weeks, the fellows worked in mixed-country teams, moving from problem research and solution design to business modelling, prototyping and final presentations.

The projects are notable for their grounding in everyday infrastructure gaps. One team developed a cashless payment concept for informal transport. Another worked on digital financial identity for informal merchants, while other projects focused on medicine-supply visibility, cross-border employment, smart recycling and low-cost water-quality testing for rural communities.

Artificial intelligence was part of the programme’s wider skills environment rather than a claim attached to every project. The fellows took part in a session on AI for impact with Celina Lee, co-founder of Zindi, alongside practical sessions on public speaking, career development and entrepreneurship. That combination reflects how young African technologists are increasingly being asked to connect technical systems to real operating contexts.

The final event also showed the importance of networks around early-stage talent. Fellows met Yango leaders from different markets and presented their work to a jury drawn from technology, investment and industry. A total prize fund of $12,000 was distributed across team and individual projects.

Africoded won the top team prize for an AI-supported platform connecting African candidates to cross-border employment, remote work and career development. Harambee placed second with a recycling platform, while Bloom’s African Transit Payment Revolution took third place. Fredrick Mwepu of Zambia won the individual award for RoboCore Zambia, a locally developed robotics platform intended to make practical STEM education more accessible.

The broader significance is the effort to build a cross-border talent pipeline around problems that are often overlooked by imported technology products. Fellowships cannot replace universities, investors or public infrastructure, but they can give young builders experience in research, product design and collaboration across markets.

For Africa’s AI ecosystem, that is an important layer of capacity. The next question is whether the teams can move beyond a fellowship and find the capital, customers and institutional partners needed to turn prototypes into durable services.

Source: TV One.