African Digital Identity Hackathon winners present diverse ideas: ID4Africa 2025

The winners of the African Digital Identity Hackathon, organized by Carnegie Mellon University Africa’s Upanzi Network, took the stage during the second day of ID4Africa’s 2025 AGM to compete for the grand prize.

The competition ran across all regions since September, and has a focus on building capacity by tackling impactful use cases.

More than 80 submissions from over 20 countries across Africa, addressing  were whittled down to the final eight. For next year’s edition, the organizer’s hope to have entrants from all 54 African countries.

Upanzi Network, CMU Research Engineer Andrew Musoke told Biometric Update in an interview that the organizers sought to make the barrier to entry as low as possible, and source the problems for the hackathon to address from the general public.

A team of around 20 mentors from industry, civils society and academia helped the students develop their ideas into solutions.

Musoke says the diversity of ideas was one of the most striking features of the submissions, reflecting the different priorities and needs in different regions and nations of Africa.

The hackathon is co-hosted by MicroSave Consulting, with MOSIP as a strategic partner and support from the Gates Foundation.

Beyond the hackathon, what digital identity providers and the broader ecosystem can do to help with the capacity-building that is its goal, Musoke says, is provide opportunities for talented Africans to put their skills to use without leaving the continent.

Musoke expressed appreciation for ID4Africa’s inclusion of the students among the prominent identity community leaders on stage at the event.

The Upanzi Network also launched a Digital ID Ambassador Program on Wednesday, and has multiple related initiatives on the way to further build digital identity capacity amongst Africans.

The 8 winning teams

The Bots Bots team from Botswana presented an application for tracking student loans by linking the students digital ID and tax number to detect their future employment.

Malawi’s UmodziRX entry presented a system for secure prescription verification and management, with authentication against the digital ID to link a prescription issued by a doctor to the pharmacy that dispenses it.

One team from Morocco, Gatekeepers, shared a system for using MOSIP’s e-Signet and face authentication to ease flight check-in and boarding, but without expensive e-gates.

A second entry from Morocco, called Amanar, developed a unified digital energy ID to monitor usage and provide data-driven insights.

The Farm2Global team of Rwandan finalists presented an application to trace and target agro-input subsidies with farmer identity verification.

Another team from Rwanda, SmartTrais, showed off an application providing a digital marketplace linking smallholder farms and buyers.

An entry from Togo shared a mobile app for medical records and history utilizing MOSIP e-Signet and a QR code for access.

The team from Senegal shared an application for encouraging blood donation with a simplified process and communication with donors.

Article Topics

Africa  |  African Digital Identity Hackathon  |  biometrics  |  Carnegie Mellon University  |  digital identity  |  Gates Foundation  |  ID4Africa 2025  |  MOSIP (Modular Open Source Identity Platform)  |  Upanzi Network