The Cortex Hub has launched the MCP Hackathon Africa 2025, a continent-wide event aimed at embedding African languages, cultures, and priorities into the next generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
This bold move positions Africa not just as a consumer of AI, but as a key player in setting standards that will influence global AI development.
The eight-week program, which takes place in more than 40 cities between September and November 2025, invites researchers, developers, startups, and students to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open standard that enables applications to give AI models locally relevant data, to create practical solutions.
Africa’s role in shaping AI standards
The MCP Hackathon Africa 2025 aims to place Africa at the forefront of Artificial General Intelligence infrastructure. Participants help safeguard the continent’s digital sovereignty and lessen reliance on proprietary technologies by incorporating African languages, legal systems, and development objectives onto MCP servers.
Andile Ngcaba, Patron of The Cortex Hub, states, “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 AI’s evolution”.
More than 40 cities in Southern, West, Central, East, and North Africa host local hubs where participants can access boot camps, mentorship, peer collaboration, starter code repositories, and MCP documentation.
Innovation programs concentrate on public services, logistics, agribusiness, fintech, and telecommunications. The hackathon tackles important issues like improving safe payment methods, creating logistical platforms for international trade, and providing smallholder farmers with real-time data.
Catalysing Innovation with substantial rewards
The hackathon offers a total prize pool of $9,500, including $5,000 for the best overall solution. Winners get visibility at AfricaCom, one of Africa’s most significant tech events, presenting their work to global investors and industry leaders.
Ahmed Mohamed, Group CEO of Datacentrix, emphasises the commitment: “Datacentrix’s sponsorship of the MCP Hackathon reflects our ongoing, long-term commitment to cultivating local talent, fostering African innovation and, ultimately, helping to shape a digital future where our continent is not on the sidelines but at the very centre of global AI development”.
The MCP Hackathon Africa 2025 represents a significant step towards Africa’s digital autonomy by allowing developers to shape AI technologies that represent African realities and priorities. On November 11–12, 2025, Cape Town will host the final presentation, laying the groundwork for African ideas to enthral a worldwide audience.