Yango fellowship showcases African tech solutions at Abidjan Pitch Day

ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire — Twenty-four young technologists from six African countries presented products developed during Yango’s 2026 Pan-African Fellowship at a final Pitch Day in Abidjan on September 19.

The fellows, drawn from Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal, Ethiopia and Mozambique, worked in mixed-country teams during a 12-week programme. Six team projects, alongside selected individual projects, competed for $12,000 in prizes before a jury of technology experts.

Each of the six groups had five minutes to present its product. The projects were developed through stages that included identifying problems, conducting research, designing solutions, developing business models and building prototypes.

Products focused on everyday challenges

The teams chose problems linked to their daily experiences. Bloom presented a solution aimed at making fare payments easier on informal buses. Africoded developed a system intended to connect African job seekers with remote and cross-border employment, while Harambee built a waste-collection service linking households with informal waste collectors.

Yango said the 2026 programme placed greater emphasis on applied artificial intelligence than earlier cohorts. Before meeting in Abidjan, participants attended online workshops covering personal branding, innovation, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

The fellowship began in Zambia in 2024, expanded to two countries in 2025 and reached six countries in its 2026 edition. More than 600 people applied for the latest cohort, from which 24 fellows were selected.

Local knowledge at the centre

Shashi Singh, Yango’s Director of Operations for Yango Ride MEA & Asia, said the programme was created in response to the gap between Africa’s available talent and access to technology opportunities.

“We see that there is a lot of potential; there is a lot of talent in the people here, but the access is limited,” Singh said.

Yango’s approach is based on the view that people who experience a problem directly are often better placed to understand the local conditions required to solve it. Singh said developers working outside a market may lack the context gained by people who have spent years living with the issue.

Adeniyi Adebayo, Yango’s Africa Chief Business Officer, described the company’s regional approach as one that emphasises local presence and an understanding of individual cities rather than treating African countries as identical markets.

Possible pathways beyond the fellowship

Singh said Yango does not regard the fellowship as a recruitment funnel and does not expect every participant to join the company. However, the organisation is exploring internships, startup pathways and other opportunities for the fellows.

Some products developed through the programme could eventually become part of Yango’s wider ecosystem, Singh said, while others could develop independently or even compete with the company.

Yango Ventures, the group’s early-stage startup support arm, runs accelerator programmes. The company also disclosed plans to invest at least $150 million in African expansion during 2026 and to target entry into 10 additional African countries.

Singh said his ambition for the fellowship over the next three to five years is to see one participant build a unicorn company. He presented that as a long-term aspiration rather than a guaranteed outcome.

The programme comes as African economies face rising demand for digital skills. The World Bank estimates that around one million young Africans enter the labour market each month, while fewer than 25% of higher-education students across the continent study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. About 230 million jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa are expected to require digital skills by 2030.