Since early November 2025, the Goma and Nyiragongo Hubs have launched calls to recruit developers for a local hackathon, part of the Cardano Africa Tech Summit 2026, scheduled in Nairobi, Kenya, in February 2026. The goal was for each hub to organize a hackathon with at least eight teams presenting innovative ideas aimed at improving the Cardano ecosystem.
Achievement and Teams’ Journey
Goma &Nyiragongo hubs successfully met this objective: eight teams, each with at least five members, presented groundbreaking ideas leveraging Cardano to address local challenges in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The participants, initially trained in Web2 development, were guided by the Goma and Nyiragongo Hubs to explore Cardano. They learned to integrate Cardano wallets into dApps, create transactions, understand UTxO and EUTxO, mint NFTs, and use Cardano stacks like Aiken, Helios, Plutus, Mesh SDK, Lucid, and Blockfrost. They also explored IPFS for NFT image storage. These skills enabled each team to develop functional prototypes on the Cardano preprod network.
This experience was a highly rewarding journey: many developers expressed their intention to continue coding on Cardano after the hackathon, creating a lasting impact on adoption and innovation within the ecosystem.
Projects Presented
On December 26, 2025, all teams showcased their prototypes. Eight projects were presented, and three were selected to represent the DRC in the continental competition. Highlights of the projects include:
- Wenze: A local marketplace for Goma, integrating an ADA escrow system via Cardano smart contracts to secure transactions, reduce fraud, and reward users.
- ProofChain: An app to prevent the loss and fraud of school diplomas and certificates, storing documents as NFTs with QR codes for verification.
- UmojaFund: A crowdfunding platform allowing young Congolese to raise funds in ADA for projects, with equitable distribution through smart contracts.
- Cardavec: A platform to digitize local savings associations (AVECs), using Cardano smart contracts to ensure secure and fair fund management.
- MkulimaChain: Connecting farmers to international markets, ensuring fair delivery and ADA-based payments via smart contracts.
- ARDHI-CHAIN: Prevents fraud in land and property sales by storing land documents on the blockchain for secure transactions.
- Kenda: Reduces traffic congestion in Goma while improving transparency in traffic fines and taxi payments using ADA and Cardano DID systems.
- Proof of Capacity: Offers Web3 and Cardano training for youth, providing merit certificates and connecting learners with potential employers.
Projects Selected to Represent the DRC
Based on local relevance, successful Cardano integration, and user experience, the three projects chosen are:
- MkulimaChain – Mkulima Chain - Marketplace décentralisée pour agriculteurs congolais
- Wenze – https://wenze-smoky.vercel.app/
- ProofChain – PROOFCHAIN Issuer
Concrete Impact of the Hackathon
- 52 developers onboarded to the Cardano ecosystem.
- 8 Cardano-based MVPs presented.
- 3 high-quality projects selected to represent the DRC at the African level.
- Potential increase in Cardano liquidity and user adoption locally.
Conclusion
The Goma and Nyiragongo Hubs hackathon demonstrated the Congolese community’s ability to innovate and adopt Cardano to solve local challenges. Initiatives like this are a critical step toward the growth of Cardano in Africa and serve as an inspiring model for other hubs across the continent.
As a member of the local coordination team for this hackathon, I kindly invite you to share your feedback, advice, and suggestions regarding the projects presented above. I will be happy to relay your input to the project teams. This is a meaningful way to support the Cardano community in the DRC, helping to foster innovation and develop products that contribute to the wider adoption of Cardano in the country.
You can also follow and engage with the initiatives through these links:
- Cardano Africa Tech Summit X account: https://x.com/cats_summit?s=20
- Goma Hub X account: https://x.com/gomadrep?s=20
- Nyiragongo Hub X account: https://x.com/CARD_Nyiragongo?s=20
Your insights will play a key role in helping these projects grow and in strengthening Cardano’s ecosystem in the DRC.