CMU-Africa digital ID hackathon round 2 open; MOSIP blog reveals round 1 winners

The series of digital ID hackathons hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Africa’s Upanzi Network and MicroSave Consulting, with MOSIP as a strategic partner, are launching for Northern, Southern, and Western Africa.

The first hackathon was open to entrants in East Africa, and four teams selected from it to advance to the prototyping stage have been revealed by the Upanzi Network at CMU-Africa in a post to MOSIP’s blog, mosip16.9.

Teams of two to five people can now register for each of the three regional hackathons, and be eligible for prizes valued at a total of $10,000 for each region.

Digital ID use cases in Africa are largely confined to elections, financial inclusion and telecom applications, the post states. The regional hackathons are intended to broaden the use of digital ID to other opportunities to improve people’s lives.

Undergraduate and graduate students are invited to develop innovative use cases for digital ID, with the hope not only of finding promising ideas to prototype, but to foster the technical skills and digital talent development needed to “harness the power of digital ID.”

Therefore, the hackathon also includes an educational component, with a free virtual course on digital ID open to all student participants.

The goal is aligned with the overall purpose of MOSIP, as well, the post explains: “The key value proposition for adopting open-source digital public goods is the promise of technology independence, making vendor lock-in a phenomenon of the past. However, if the adopting nations have no capacity to deploy, maintain, and govern these digital systems effectively, there will still remain an effective vendor lock-in.”

The Upanzi Network also emphasizes the importance of local knowledge of community needs when designing digital ID solutions geared towards use in a given region.

The second round of hackathons will wrap up at ID4Africa’s 2025 annual general meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, May 20-23.

Eastern Africa hackathon winners

The Eastern Africa round opened last year, with submissions evaluated after an August deadline. More than 170 people registered from eight countries, and 18 ideas were submitted.

SmartTrais, which connects digital ID to agriculture subsidies to ensure it reaches the right recipients and reduce fraud, was among the four ideas selected for prototyping. So was Farm2Global, which connects farmers to customers around the world.

Ecard, a digital student ID system to improve the efficiency, security, and integration of services by universities, was chosen, as was HealthID, which uses QR codes to give patients control over their medical records.

Article Topics

Africa  |  African Digital Identity Hackathon  |  biometrics  |  Carnegie Mellon University  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform)