The curtain fell today on Qualcomm’s Make in Africa 2025 program with a high-voltage finale and demo day, where ten trailblazing startups from across the continent pitched AI, IoT, 5G, and edge-compute solutions tackling agriculture, health, climate, and education head-on.
After months of intense equity-free mentorship, engineering consultations, business coaching, and IP guidance, the cohort battled for the coveted Qualcomm Wireless Reach Social Impact Fund equity-free cash to supercharge real-world deployment.
Standout Contenders:
Farmer Lifeline (Kenya): Solar-powered AI robots scouting crop pests and diseases. Solar Freeze (Kenya): Cold storage tech keeping produce fresh in off-grid farms. Pollen Patrollers (Kenya): Bee-monitoring IoT saving pollinators and food security. ClimatrixAI (Nigeria): Predictive analytics fighting climate risks.
Aframend (Nigeria): AI unlocking African plants for new drugs.
Ecobees & AmalXR & Pixii Motors (Tunisia): From bee tech to XR training and electric mobility. Archeos (Benin) and Edulytics (Senegal): Rounding out a diverse, pan-African lineup.
Selected from 435 applications across 19 countries, these founders proved Africa’s not just adopting tech it’s building it from the ground up.
The Big Picture:
Qualcomm’s Wassim Chourbaji called the cohort “a testament to Africa’s burgeoning innovation landscape.” One winner snags the Social Impact Fund for wireless-powered community fixes; the rest pocket growth stipends.
As the finale wrapped, eyes turned global: These startups aren’t stopping at borders. They’re exporting African ingenuity, sustainable, connected, and unstoppable.
Africa’s deep-tech revolution? It’s happening now.
