about 14 hours ago

Let's help you share your project with the world!

Congratulations on getting to the submissions phase of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026!

We are reviewing and curating submissions and will soon publish them in the gallery, subject to eligibility.

In the meantime, we invite you to share your projects and videos on social media (X, Instagram, LinkedIn) using the hashtags #AfricaDeepTechChallenge2026 and #ADTC2026. Also tag our handles @africadeeptech on X, Instagram, and Africa Deep Tech Community on LinkedIn.

This will let us share your project with our community of Deep Tech investors and innovators, giving you and your project more visibility.

You can see…

Read more


4 days ago

How to get your Team ID

Hello all, 

As we count down to the submission deadline, we have been getting questions about how to get your Team ID.

The team ID in this context means the Dev Post project ID. E.g for this Devpost project it is : project-farmspeak Note that you may need to create the project submission before you can get the URL / Team ID. This is OK because you can always go back to edit your submission.  

We've reviewed early repos and found a recurring problem: participants are submitting repos that are missing the required structure from the submission template

Read more


7 days ago

Final call for submissions

There are only 3 days left to complete your submission for Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026.


7 days ago

Action required: FInal Submission Checklist

Hello ADTC Builders!

The deadline is days away. We've reviewed early repos and found a recurring problem: participants are submitting repos that are missing the required structure from the submission template. An incomplete repo is an invalid submission — no matter how good your model is.

Check your repo now. It must contain:

metadata.json — fully filled, no placeholders, exactly 2 test prompts

download_model.sh — downloads your .gguf model without credentials

REPORT.md — problem, design decisions, constraints, benchmarks

model/ — populated by the script, not committed to git

.gitignore — must exclude *.gguf and

Read more


10 days ago

Final Q & A Session Happening now!

Final Q & A Session Happening now!
Join using this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iLScsP4yShuNmaT-aZ7IVg

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the Discord Channel.


11 days ago

The Final ADTC 2026 Q&A Session: Come with your questions , stay for the tips and advice!

Hello builders!
Have questions about the ADTC Laptop LLM Challenge?

Join today's Q&A session to chat with the team, ask technical questions &  get unstuck.

Whether you're just getting started or putting the finishing touches on your submission, we'd love to see you there.

Time:  15:00 WAT
Link: https://bit.ly/4gpeGXx

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the Discord Channel.


17 days ago

ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session Happening Now: Low Rank Compression of Neural Network Weights to Optimize for Local Models

ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session Happening Now: Low Rank Compression of Neural Network Weights to Optimize for Local Models

 

Attend using this link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iLScsP4yShuNmaT-aZ7IVg

 


19 days ago

Attend Rescheduled ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session: Low Rank Compression of Neural Network Weights to Optimize for Local Models

Hello Participants, 

We are happy to finally bring you the earlier scheduled session: Low Rank Compression of Neural Network Weights to Optimize for Local Models 

Deploying AI on everyday laptops starts with building smarter models, not just bigger ones. How do you compress powerful neural networks without sacrificing performance?



Join Information Session 5 of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026 as Quintin Makwe, VP of Engineering at Insomnia Labs, explores how Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) can be used to compress neural network weights for faster, more efficient deployment on low-compute devices.

If you're building for #TheLaptopLLM, this session…

Read more


24 days ago

Today's Knowledge Session Postponed

Hello builders,

Unfortunately, today's info session has been postponed because our speaker is unavailable due to an emergency.

A new date and time will be communicated soon.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your understanding.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the discussion forum.


26 days ago

New: ADTC 2026 finalists get a direct pathway into the Africa AI XPrize

We've partnered with the Nduzi Foundation to give all 10 ADTC 2026 finalists access to the Africa AI XPrize — a $10M initiative to make AI inference 50–100x more affordable across Africa. Finalists will receive mentorship and introductions to top global AI talent ahead of the official XPrize launch at Moonshot Lagos, October 28, 2026.

 

The work you're building now directly feeds into what the XPrize is trying to achieve. Keep going.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon or want to access some of the resources shared during the session, please join and post on the…

Read more


27 days ago

Attend ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session: Low Rank Compression of Neural Network Weights to Optimize for Local Models

Deploying AI on everyday laptops starts with building smarter models, not just bigger ones. How do you compress powerful neural networks without sacrificing performance?

Join Information Session 5 of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026 as Quintin Makwe, VP of Engineering at Insomnia Labs, explores how Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) can be used to compress neural network weights for faster, more efficient deployment on low-compute devices.

If you're building for hashtag#TheLaptopLLM, this session will provide you with practical techniques for optimising models to run where they're needed most.

Date: 4th August, 2026.
Date: 2:00 PM UTC

Read more


27 days ago

Important Updates to Submission Form: Separate fields for profiler scores

The submission form has been updated to enable you to enter the self-reported profiler scores in separate fields.

 

  1. Self-Reported Profiler Performance Score (Sperf)
  2. Self-Reported Profiler Efficiency Score (Seff)

If you have previously completed your submission, please ensure that you update your submission to include the correct self-reported profiler scores. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

For more on how to use the profiler, please look at this video tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSj-s4_873dY

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon or want to access some of the resources shared during the session, please join and post on…

Read more


about 1 month ago

Watch 2 Knowledge Session Recordings : GPU Access for African Builders + Decentralized Wireless Mesh Connectivity Suite with Embedded AI.

As part of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026, we held two information sessions exploring two interesting topics

  1. DWMCS-AI: a Decentralized Wireless Mesh Connectivity Suite with Embedded AI by Dapo Sosanya
  2. Expanding Low Resource AI Innovation using Cloud GPUs by Alex Tsado

Please review the recordings above and let us have your feedback!

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon or want to access some of the resources shared during the session, please join and post on the Discord Channel.


about 1 month ago

Attend ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session: GPU Access for African AI Builders — An Information Session with Alex Tsado

Date: Tuesday, 21 July 2026 Time: 7:00 AM PST | 2:00 PM GMT Format: Online Information Session

Register here →

One of the biggest constraints facing AI builders in Africa is not talent or ambition — it is compute. Training and scaling AI models requires access to high-performance GPUs, and for most teams on the continent, the cost and availability of that infrastructure has been a genuine blocker.

Alex Tsado has spent his career working on exactly that problem. As a former NVIDIA product manager, he helped launch the company's global cloud AI business and worked with the world's largest cloud…

Read more


about 2 months ago

Watch Knowledge Session Recording: The Last Mile of AI: Designing for Real-World Constraints

Watch the recording here

As part of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026, we held an information session exploring one of the most important engineering questions facing today's builders:

The Last Mile of AI: Designing for Real-World Constraints

Our guest speaker, Oji Udezue (General Partner, Phalanx Ventures; former Chief Product Officer at Calendly and Typeform), shared practical insights from building products used by millions.

He explored:
• Practical frameworks for identifying high-impact problems worth solving
• How to design products that move beyond demos into real-world adoption
• Emerging opportunities across the Challenge domains
• Lessons from global innovation ecosystems…

Read more


about 2 months ago

Attend ADTC 2026 Knowledge Session: "The Last Mile of AI: Designing for Real-World Constraints" tomorrow at 2pm UTC

As part of the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026, join us for another information session exploring one of the most important engineering questions facing today's builders:

The Last Mile of AI: Designing for Real-World Constraints

Our guest speaker, Oji Udezue (General Partner, Phalanx Ventures; former Chief Product Officer at Calendly and Typeform), will share practical insights from building products used by millions.

Together, we'll explore:
• Practical frameworks for identifying high-impact problems worth solving
• How to design products that move beyond demos into real-world adoption
• Emerging opportunities across the Challenge domains
• Lessons from global innovation ecosystems and…

Read more


2 months ago

Attend ADTC 2026 Knowledge session today at 2pm UTC

Remember to attend today's knowledge session at 2pm UTC where you can learn more about the challenge and ask your questions.

Register with this link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iLScsP4yShuNmaT-aZ7IVg

Questions?

If you have any questions about the hackathon, please post on the Discord Channel.


2 months ago

Free GPU Credits From UDUTech Available for ADTC 2026 Participants

As you build your submission for the Africa Deep Tech Challenge 2026, we want to make sure compute constraints don't slow you down.

Registered participants can now apply for up to 5 hours of free GPU credits from UDUTech to use for model training and experimentation. This is separate from the finalist and semi-finalist stipends — it's available to you now, while you're building.

To apply, click this link.

A few things to note:

  • Credits will be granted based on the quality of your application
  • They're intended for training and fine-tuning — final benchmarks must still run on the…

Read more