An effort to secure Africa’s place in the future of artificial intelligence has been launched with the announcement of the MCP Hackathon Africa 2025.
The continent-wide initiative, orchestrated by The Cortex Hub, is designed to ensure African languages, cultures, and development priorities are woven into the very fabric of the next generation of AI.
The ambitious eight-week programme will run from September to November 2025, uniting developers, researchers, startups, and students across more than 40 cities.
Participants will build practical solutions using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that allows applications to feed structured, locally relevant information to large language models. The event will culminate in a grand continental showcase in Cape Town on 11-12 November, where finalists will present their innovations to a global audience of investors and technology leaders.
This strategic move is seen as critical for ensuring digital sovereignty and reducing reliance on foreign, closed technologies. The hackathon will focus on key sectors including telecommunications, financial technology, agriculture, logistics, and public services, tackling real-world challenges from empowering smallholder farmers to streamlining cross-border trade.
A prize pool of US$9,500 is on offer, including a US$5,000 grand prize. Winners will also gain a platform at the major AfricaCom technology event.
Andile Ngcaba, Patron of The Cortex Hub, stated, “The Model Context Protocol is Africa’s opportunity to move from being consumers of AI to creators of the standards that govern it. By coding MCP servers for our towns and cities, participants will be embedding African contexts, cultures, and priorities into the very fabric of AI’s evolution.”
The event has garnered support from major technology partners across the continent. Alpheus Mangale, Group Chief Executive Officer of Seacom, said, "The youth of Africa stand as pivotal architects... your participation... is not merely technical labor; it is the forging of cognitive infrastructure."
Echoing the sentiment of sovereign AI development, Pramod Venkatesh, CEO of Solcon Capital, said, “As the world experiences an explosion of Agentic AI, it is critical that Africa develops its own sovereign AI capabilities to ensure technological independence, security, and cultural relevance.”
The Chief Executive Officer of Mauritius Telecom, Veemal Gungadin, issued a clear call to action: "Africa must not be a follower but a leader in AI."
Registration for the hackathon is now open for participants eager to shape a digitally independent and culturally resonant AI future for the continent.