hackathon
About the Hackathon
The Institute of Skilled Technology Professionals (ISTP) Hackathon 2024 is a continent-first competition that invited African product and engineering teams to prototype and pitch tech solutions with potential for global adoption. Over a 48-hour intensive sprint, teams worked with mentors and industry judges to sharpen product-market fit, build viable prototypes, and prepare investor-ready demo pitches.
The hackathon prioritized:
- Practical, deployable prototypes
- Business model clarity and route to scale
- Ethical and inclusive design
- Local-first problems with global potential
Audience: startups, early-stage product teams, university-founded teams, NGOs building digital solutions and corporate innovation squads with roots in Africa.
Judges
Abbas Irekeola — Senior Software Developer
Abbas brings deep engineering leadership experience across distributed systems and backend architecture. He evaluated teams on technical feasibility, scalability and implementation realism.
Qazeem Oladejo — Product Consultant
Qazeem assessed product-market fit, UX clarity, business viability and the readiness of each solution to capture markets beyond its origin country.
Mekbib Awoke — Senior Software Developer
Mekbib focused on code quality, data and model considerations, interoperability and the technical roadmap from prototype to production.
Dr Bright Bright Gameli Mawudor — Independent Researcher & Tech Policy Expert
Dr Mawudor provided frameworks on ethical design, regulatory readiness, and societal impact when considering how a product might scale globally.