Dates

Date

Stage

Activity

Tue June 16, 2026

Launch

Contest opens. Problem domains, hardware profile, profiler tool, and validation-set samples published.

Tue August 25, 2026

Gate 1 Deadline

Proposals + prototypes submitted. Two-step judging: proposal screen, then prototype review of the top ~10%.

Tue Sept 8, 2026 

Semifinalists Announced

Up to 20 teams notified. Gate 2 narrowing audit begins.

Tue Sept 29, 2026

Finalists Announced

Up to 10 teams advance to Live Defense. Pitch-prep window opens.

Sat, Oct 17, 2026

Live Defense & Awards

Remote live pitches, technical Q&A, and winners announced the same day.

 

Eligibility

Eligibility & Truth in Declaration: This challenge is strictly dedicated to early-stage builders. By entering, you formally declare that your project or company is less than 12 months old and that your product is in the ideation, conceptual, or early prototype phase (not commercially launched).

Note: While we operate on an honor system during registration, the organizers reserve the right to conduct background checks on all finalists. Any team found to have misrepresented their stage, age, or funding will be immediately disqualified from the challenge and stripped of any awarded prizes.

  • Open to individuals or teams of up to 3 members.
  • Participants must be aged 18 or older and reside in any of the listed African countries.
  • No prior startup or funding status required—this challenge is for emerging innovators.

  • Venture Age: Incorporations, formal registrations, or organized teams must not exceed 12 months of existence as of June 16, 2026.

  • Product Stage: Submissions must be at the ideation, conceptual, or early proof-of-concept (PoC) stage. Teams with fully commercialized products, active monthly recurring revenue (MRR), or mature minimum viable products (MVPs) already deployed in the market for more than 6 months will be disqualified.

  • Funding Cap: To ensure equity, participating teams must not have raised more than $25,000 USD in external dilutive capital or non-dilutive grants.

  • All submissions must be the original work of the team.
  • Teams can use open-source tools or libraries but must cite them clearly.
  • You agree to the Challenge Participation Agreement 

Project and Submission Requirements

  • Open Source Github repo that leverages the approved ADTC 2026 Report Template
  • A comprehensive project report including:
    • Problem definition and context
    • Identified constraints (e.g. power, data, compute, connectivity)
    • Documentation of design alternatives and final decisions
    • Tools used and why they were chosen
    • Performance tests and benchmarks
    • Screenshots or short videos showing your build in action
    • A short video (max 2 minutes) explaining your solution and development journey
  • Updated repo, documentation and video (if part of semi-final or final round)

Prizes

Tier

Cash Grant

Non-Cash Support

Grand Prize

$8,000

Full ADTC Scale-Up Suite: 6-month residency, Pilot Matchmaking slot, Venture Demo Day invitation.

Second Place

$4,000

3-month residency, Pilot Matchmaking slot, Venture Demo Day invitation

3rd Place

$3,000

3-month residency. Venture Demo Day invitation

Best African Use Case

$1,500

Awarded for the strongest African use case implementation. 3-month residency

Finalist Stipends

$250 (In GPU Credits) × 10 = $2,500

Network access for each of the 10 Gate 3 participants.

Semifinalist Stipends

$50 (In GPU Credits) × 20 = $1,000

Nominal prototyping support for the 40 semifinalists who submit a complete Gate 2 package (awarded to top 20 by submission quality).

TOTAL

$20,000

  

Judging Criteria and Winner Selection

Category

Weight

Description

Model Accuracy & Quality 

50%

A combination of multiple-choice benchmarks and qualitative evaluations that includes accuracy of prompts, quality of documentation 

Model Throughput Performance 

30%

Evaluated relative to the maximum observed tokens per second

Model Efficiency

20%

Rewards lower RAM utilization profiles relative to the maximum memory budget 

African Use Case Bonus

Bonus

Up to 10 extra points awarded for  how applicable the model is to a real African use case

Hardware & Thermal Penalties

Penalty

10 points deducted if core/package temperature exceeds 85∘C or if thermal throttling is flagged.

OOM or sandbox execution crash results in disqualification

 

Eligible Countries

  • Algeria
  • Angola
  • Benin
  • Botswana
  • Burkina Faso
  • Burundi
  • Cameroon
  • Cape Verde
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Comoros
  • Congo
  • Congo the Democratic Republic of the
  • Cote d'Ivoire
  • Djibouti
  • Egypt
  • Equatorial Guinea
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Gabon
  • Gambia
  • Ghana
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Kenya
  • Lesotho
  • Liberia
  • Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Note: This was the former name of Libya)
  • Madagascar
  • Malawi
  • Mali
  • Mauritania
  • Mauritius
  • Morocco
  • Mozambique
  • Namibia
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • Rwanda
  • Sao Tome and Principe
  • Senegal
  • Seychelles
  • Sierra Leone
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • Swaziland (now known as Eswatini)
  • Tanzania United Republic of
  • Togo
  • Tunisia
  • Uganda
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe