(En français)

The U.S.-West Africa Tech Challenge aims to advance the development of promising technologies that offer innovative solutions to help expose, understand, or counter disinformation, propaganda, and violent extremism within Coastal West Africa.

We invite technologists from across Africa to submit an application to present their solutions against these challenges to an audience of government, civil society, and private sector stakeholders. Up to eight organizations will be selected to demonstrate their technology to a panel of judges. Up to three organizations will be selected as winners of the Challenge and will receive funding totaling $250,000 USD.

The U.S.-West Africa Tech Challenge will be hosted in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire on September 27-28 2023, as a two-part event. Part one will consist of the demo day featuring the selected technologists; part two will feature panels and discussions amongst technologists, government officials, civil society, academia, and media to share lessons learned and opportunities for cooperation around addressing the challenges.

Winning solutions will be put to use for the benefit of countries in Coastal West Africa but this Call for Submissions is open to organizations domiciled and headquartered across Africa, not just those based in Coastal West Africa.

The U.S.-West Africa Tech Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center, in collaboration with U.S. Embassy Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, United Nations Development Programme, She Code Africa, Impact Hub Abidjan, and Becera.

The Call for Submissions period has now ended. We look forward to sharing more information on the finalists and the event shortly! For any questions, please contact westafricatechchallenge@becera.co