The Build-Up: From Zero to Oversubscribed! 📈
When we opened registrations on September 12th, we honestly weren’t sure what to expect. Within days, we had over 110 teams knocking on our virtual door!
Great, turns out people really like AI Hackthons! We had to narrow it down to 20 teams (69 brilliant minds in total), and let me tell you, picking them was like trying to choose your favorite character from Friends - impossible!
Power-Packed Partnerships 🤝
We didn’t do this alone. We teamed up with some absolute powerhouses: GIZ, Pindo, Andela, QT Software, and the Center for the Foruth Industrial Revolution co-organized this with Irembo. As the AI engineer on deck, I was like a kid in a candy store, making sure our participants had access to every cool tool under the sun:
- IremboPay sandboxes (every team got one!)
- Pindo’s cutting-edge voice models for Swahili and Kinyarwanda
- Llama 3.2 70B for those heavy-lifting LLM tasks
- A beefy 32GB RAM VPS in the cloud
Plus, of course, the essentials - killer Wi-Fi, endless coffee, and our state-of-the-art facilities. Because let’s be real, what’s a hackathon without caffeine? ☕
Day 1: The Energy Was Electric! ⚡
The picture for Day 1 had teams from all over Africa, huddled in different corners of our campus, minds racing with ideas. We had girls from Rwanda Coding Academy, folks from CMU Africa, University of Rwanda, and seasoned industry pros all under one roof. The diversity was absolutely beautiful to see!
For many, it was their first time using tools like Pindo’s beta TTS APIs and large language models. But that was exactly the point - we wanted to throw these brilliant minds into the deep end of the AI pool, and boy, did they swim!
Day 2: When Things Got Real 💪
By day two, everyone was running on a mixture of determination and coffee. The campus was buzzing with innovation - health solutions, agritech ideas, and my personal favorite? A team called SomatekAI building an app to scan African meals and break down their nutritional value. (Seriously, when can I download this?)
The Final Stretch: Blood, Sweat, and Bugs 🐛
As we hit the home stretch, things got intense. Bugs popped up like uninvited guests at a party, applications started acting up, and fatigue began to set in. But these teams? They were unstoppable!
The grand prize of 5 million Rwandan francs probably helped keep those eyes open! 😉
Judgment Day: The Grand Finale 🏆
The final day was a marathon of presentations - 18 teams, 6 hours of judging, and some seriously tough decisions to make. Our top three blew us away:
- 🥉 Third Place
A genius solution by SomatekAI: a browser extension for simplifying and contextualizing complex technical documentation for Rwandan students studying coding!
- 🥎 Second Place
An AI agent builder by ImmersiveAI that makes personalized chatbots accessible to non-techies by simply dragging and dropping components and embedding a code snippet into their website.
- 🥇 First Place:
The absolute game-changer BwengeAI - a voice telephony app that could talk to Irembo in Kinyarwanda over SIP technology. Talk about bringing AI to the masses!
The Cherry on Top 🍒
Here’s the best part - we ended up hiring one of the winners! And we’re not stopping there - we’re continuing to support these incredible innovators through internships and other opportunities.
Looking Back, Looking Forward 🌅
This was my first time organizing a hackathon, and wow, what a ride! The lessons learned were invaluable, but what really struck me was seeing the next generation tackle problems that matter. They weren’t just building tech for tech’s sake - they were solving real problems that affect real people. To all the participants: you didn’t just code for 48 hours - you showed us what the future of African innovation looks like. And let me tell you, it looks bright! ✨ Want to be part of our next hackathon? Keep your eyes peeled - after this success, you better believe there will be more coming! 🚀