Techbuild Africa Community

Nigerian Student? Apply for Startup Abuja Scholarship Programme (₦50M) Startup Abuja has opened applications for its 2026 Scholarship Programme, offering tertiary students across Nigeria access to education funding, entrepreneurship training and work experience. The programme comes with a N50 million funding pool and is designed to support students who need financial assistance while also helping them build practical skills for the workplace and entrepreneurship.… https://techbuild.africa/nigerian-student-startup-abuja-scholarship-₦50m/

FMYD and NiYA Partner Cascador to Fund Nigerian Youth Founders (Up to ₦5 Million Each) The Federal Ministry of Youth Development (FMYD), through the Nigerian Youth Academy (NiYA), today announced a new partnership with Cascador, a Nigeria-focused platform for growth-stage founders, to fund and support the next generation of Nigerian youth entrepreneurs. The announcement coincides with International Youth Day 2026, whose global theme this year, “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations”, calls… https://techbuild.africa/fmyd-niya-cascador-fund-nigerian-youth-founders/

The World Cup, Winter Olympics and AFCON: What Nigeria Googled Most (Jan – July 2026) Every big story now has a second life in the search bar. When the Super Eagles lost a semi-final on penalties, when a strait most people had never thought about pushed up the price of petrol, when a music promoter’s car crash reopened a three-year-old argument, Nigerians went to Google. A new review of anonymised… https://techbuild.africa/world-cup-winter-olympics-afcon-nigeria-jan-july/

African Early-Stage Founder? Apply for Commonwealth Startup Fellowship (£35K) Applications are set to open for the third cohort of the Commonwealth Startup Fellowship, a six-month programme delivered by Imperial College London’s Enterprise Lab in partnership with the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. The programme supports early-stage startups from eligible low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries, combining an in-person bootcamp in Accra, Ghana, with online coaching, workshops and… https://techbuild.africa/early-founder-commonwealth-startup-fellowship/

Meet the 20 Entrepreneurs Advancing to Africa’s Business Heroes 2026 Semi-Final in Nairobi The Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) Prize Competition, a philanthropic initiative of Alibaba Philanthropy, today announced the 20 entrepreneurs who will advance to its 2026 Semi-Final, taking place in Nairobi, Kenya, on 21–22 August. The Top 20 were selected from an expanded Top 100 cohort drawn from more than 24,000 applications across all 54 African countries.… https://techbuild.africa/20-entrepreneurs-africas-business-heroes-nairobi/

TN Naija Unveils Connect & Ignite 2026 (CXI’26): A New Bridge for the UK–Africa Tech Corridor TN Naija today announced Connect & Ignite 2026 (CXI’26), a full-day conference and evening social bringing together Africans in tech, founders, engineers, operators and investors working across the UK–Africa corridor. The event takes place Saturday, 29 August 2026, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, with the theme “Unlocking Opportunities Across Borders” CXI’26 is positioned as the premier… https://techbuild.africa/tn-naija-ignite-2026-cxi26-uk-africa-tech/

Anambra Is Betting on Open-Source AI to Make Government More Efficient The Anambra State ICT Agency has begun running its internal operations on an artificial intelligence system it built by adapting an existing open-source model, rather than developing a foundational model from scratch; a claim that, if it holds up to scrutiny, would make it one of the more concrete examples of a Nigerian sub-national government… https://techbuild.africa/anambra-open-source-ai-government-more-efficient/

The AI Advantage: How Nigerian SMEs Can Cut Costs, Grow Faster and Compete For years, AI was mostly a large-company tool. Small businesses faced high costs, complicated systems and a shortage of people who knew how to deploy them. A new study argues that those barriers are starting to fall for Nigeria’s small and medium-sized businesses. That could leave companies that are slow to experiment with AI playing… https://techbuild.africa/ai-advantage-how-nigerian-smes-compete/

Mathesis Analytics Lands Strategic Investment to Transform Nigeria’s Credit Infrastructure with AI Mathesis Analytics, a Nigerian financial technology company providing AI-powered credit decisioning infrastructure, today announced a strategic investment from Sewa Capital Limited, an investment banking and financial advisory firm focused on supporting high-growth businesses across Africa. This new investment will accelerate the scaling and institutional deployment of Mathesis’ proprietary credit decisioning engine. Currently, Nigerian lenders face… https://techbuild.africa/mathesis-analytics-credit-infrastructure-ai/

Cyber Threat Levels Spike Worldwide as Ransomware Attacks Double — Check Point Check Point Research, the threat intelligence arm of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., today released its Global Threat Intelligence insights for July 2026, revealing that organisations worldwide experienced an average of 2,336 cyber attacks per week, representing a 3% increase month on month and a 16% increase year on year. African organisations recorded 3,237 attacks… https://techbuild.africa/cyber-threat-ransomware-attack-double-check-point/

KoinKoin’s KuCoin Deal Points to A New Model for African Crypto Infrastructure KoinKoin, a Nigerian digital asset company, is plugging into KuCoin’s institutional trading infrastructure as it looks to deepen liquidity for users across Africa. The partnership gives KoinKoin access to KuCoin’s spot-market liquidity across hundreds of digital assets through its Crypto-as-a-Service offering. KuCoin Institutional will act as one of KoinKoin’s core liquidity providers, with the integration… https://techbuild.africa/koinkoins-kucoin-african-crypto-infrastructure/

Application Opens for ECOWAS Startup Awards 2026 The ECOWAS Startup Awards 2026 is calling on entrepreneurs across West Africa to showcase startups creating jobs, introducing new products and services, and contributing to economic development in the region. The awards are open to startups based and registered within an ECOWAS country. The initiative provides a regional platform for founders to gain recognition and… https://techbuild.africa/application-opens-for-ecowas-startup-awards-2026/

From Hype to Use Case: Stablecoins’ Next Phase in Africa’s Payments Evolution By Rajat Mishra, CPO, Network Product & Deputy Group CPIO at Onafriq For much of the past decade, discussion around stablecoins have been dominated by cryptocurrency speculation. Increasingly, however, stablecoins are emerging as practical financial infrastructure for moving money across borders, managing liquidity and improving payment efficiency. The real opportunity lies not in choosing between… https://techbuild.africa/stablecoins-next-phase-africas-payments-evolution/

Don’t Marry the AI Model When it comes to choosing the right AI model for the enterprise, you need freedom and visibility, says Raymond Collins, AI Sales Executive at Braintree. AI has been fast to arrive and fast to evolve, and even faster to punish the enterprise that chose too early. There is no longer a single model to adopt… https://techbuild.africa/dont-marry-the-ai-model/

CBN Regulatory Sandbox Cohort 2 Opens Applications for Fintech Innovators in Nigeria The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has opened applications for the second cohort of its Regulatory Sandbox programme, giving fintech companies an opportunity to test new financial products, services and business models within a supervised environment before wider market deployment. The initiative forms part of the apex bank’s efforts to encourage responsible innovation while strengthening… https://techbuild.africa/cbn-regulatory-sandbox-fintech-innovators-nigeria/

Trust Has Become the New Attack Surface Attackers aren’t breaking in; they’re being invited, and the invitations are being written by the business, says Richard Frost, Head of Technology Solutions and Consulting at Armata Cyber Security. The easiest way to install malware on a business network is to persuade someone inside the business to do it. Attackers don’t always need to bypass… https://techbuild.africa/trust-has-become-the-new-attack-surface/

Apply for Innovate Africa Challenge 2026 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Smart Africa Secretariat have opened applications for the third edition of the Innovate Africa Challenge. The 2026 edition, themed “From Ideation to Deployment,” is looking for proven AI solutions that can help farmers improve productivity, respond to climate risks and make better agricultural… https://techbuild.africa/apply-for-innovate-africa-challenge-2026/

NDPC Probes UNILAG, Lotus Bank, Hackerbella in Data Protection Crackdown The Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has commenced a forensic investigation into the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lotus Bank and Hackerbella Ltd following public complaints alleging the use of students’ personal data to open bank accounts without a lawful basis. In a statement signed by Babatunde Bamigboye, Esq. Head, Legal, Enforcement & Regulations, the National… https://techbuild.africa/ndpc-unilag-lotus-bank-hackerbella-data/

Financial Services Innovators, Mentors Without Borders Extend Tech Mentorship to Aliko Dangote University Financial Services Innovators (FSI), in partnership with Mentors Without Borders (MWB), has expanded its flagship one-year Tech Mentorship Programme to Aliko Dangote University of Science and Technology (ADUSTECH), Wudil, Kano State, marking another significant milestone in its commitment to developing Nigeria’s next generation of technology professionals. The programme is designed to equip university students with… https://techbuild.africa/fsi-mentors-without-borders-dangote-university/

Six Nigerian Creators Join the Google News Initiative Growth Lab The Google News Initiative (GNI) has selected six Nigerian independent news creators to join the Sub-Saharan Africa cohort of the Emerging News Voices Growth Lab: Onlinebanker, Adetunji Films, More Branches TV, Wearegst , Iswellthecapitalist and The Republic. They are among roughly 20 emerging news creators from across the region taking part in the multi-month virtual… https://techbuild.africa/six-nigerian-google-news-initiative-growth-lab/