Yango Fellowship 2026: 24 young Africans pitch tech fixes for transit, waste and jobs 🚀🌍

Cliquez ici pour lire en français

In Abidjan, 24 young innovators from six African countries pitched their tech projects at the close of the 2026 Yango Fellowship. Run by Yango Group, the program put them to work for twelve weeks on one shared goal: building tools that address real problems across the continent. According to Yango Group, the participants, from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Mozambique, were picked from more than 600 applicants and split into six multinational teams.

From problem to prototype  💻

Over the course of the program, participants worked through the core stages of building a tech project: identifying a need, researching it, designing a solution, defining a business model, prototyping, and presenting to a jury. Each team tackled a problem rooted in local realities. Projects covered cashless payments in informal transport, digital financial identity for informal-sector merchants, tracking medicine supply, and access to cross-border jobs.

Other teams focused on smart waste management and low-cost water-quality testing in rural areas. In Abidjan, the fellows also joined a session on AI for impact, led by Celina Lee, co-founder of Zindi, an African data science competition platform. Public-speaking workshops and pitch coaching rounded out the program, along with discussions on tech entrepreneurship in an African context.

Winners at Pitch Day 💡

Pitch Day, the final presentation round in front of the jury, picked out several standout projects. Zambia’s Fredrick Mwepu won Best Individual Project, a $1,500 prize (about 860,000 CFA francs, the currency used in Cameroon), for RoboCore Zambia. His robotics platform aims to make hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education more accessible.

In the team category, Africoded took first prize, worth $4,500 (about 2.6 million CFA francs), with an AI-assisted platform for cross-border job access. Harambee came second with a smart waste collection and recycling system, while Bloom placed third with a cashless payment system for informal public transport. In total, $12,000 (about 6.9 million CFA francs) went to the winners.

Connected solutions for local needs  📡

Other projects were also recognized in the individual category. Ghana’s Meshack Kwame Nartey took second prize, $1,000 (about 575,000 CFA francs), for an app that tracks university shuttles in real time. Senegal’s Oulimata Rose Dia won the Best Technical/AI Contribution prize, also $1,000, for Smart Bin Collection, a solar-powered system that uses 2G mobile connectivity to measure how full waste bins are.

Shashi Singh, operations director for Yango Ride across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, argues that the gap between applications and available spots points to a need for structured mentorship. For Yango Group, building services suited to African markets depends partly on strengthening local expertise through programs like the Fellowship.

The sources reviewed, however, say nothing about what happens to these prototypes after Pitch Day: funding, support, or deployment in the field. That is where the program’s real impact will be measured.

What kind of support would help young African innovators turn prototypes into lasting solutions? Tell us in the comments.