The Retail and Consumer Services Hackathon is a groundbreaking event focused on transforming how African consumers shop, pay, and interact with retail businesses through technology. In a continent where retail faces unique challenges from fragmented payment systems to supply chain inefficiencies, this hackathon invites developers, designers, data scientists, and entrepreneurs to create practical and scalable solutions that work seamlessly for the African market.

With access to cutting-edge tools, APIs, and mentorship, participants will innovate across key areas of retail and consumer services—delivering real-world solutions that are impactful, inclusive, and transformative.

Addressable Problems in Retail & Consumer Services

• Point of Sale & Payment Solutions: Develop integrated POS systems, mobile payment solutions, and cashless transaction platforms.

• Inventory & Supply Chain Management: Build tools for stock tracking, demand forecasting, and supplier coordination.

• E-commerce & Online Retail: Create platforms that enable seamless online shopping experiences with local payment integration.

• Customer Loyalty & Rewards Programs: Design innovative solutions for customer retention, points systems, and personalized rewards.

• Last-Mile Delivery & Logistics: Develop efficient delivery tracking, route optimization, and fulfillment solutions.

• Retail Analytics & Business Intelligence: Leverage data to provide insights on sales patterns, customer behavior, and inventory optimization.

• In-Store Experience Enhancement: Build solutions using IoT, AR/VR, or mobile apps to improve the physical shopping experience.

• Market & Price Intelligence: Create platforms for price comparison, market trends, and competitive analysis.

• Consumer Credit & BNPL: Design accessible buy-now-pay-later and micro-lending solutions for retail purchases.

• Product Authentication & Anti-Counterfeiting: Enable verification systems to protect consumers from counterfeit goods.

• SME Retail Enablement: Design affordable retail management solutions for small shops, kiosks, and informal traders.

• Sustainability & Circular Economy: Build solutions for sustainable consumption, product recycling, and waste reduction.

Objectives

• Bridge the Retail Technology Gap: Create solutions that improve accessibility and efficiency of retail operations.

• Foster Local Innovation: Empower African innovators to solve Africa's unique retail challenges.

• Promote Financial Inclusion: Build solutions that enable seamless payments and credit access.

• Encourage Responsible Commerce: Prioritize consumer protection, data privacy, and ethical business practices.

• Enable Impact at Scale: Ensure solutions can grow to benefit thousands of retailers and consumers across Africa

Target Attendees

• Developers & Engineers: With experience in mobile/web development, APIs, or scalable platforms.

• Retail Professionals: Practitioners who understand real challenges in retail operations and consumer behavior.

• AI/ML & Data Scientists: Experts building analytics and predictive retail models.

• Students & Learners: With a passion for technology and retail innovation.

• Social Entrepreneurs & Startups: Focused on impactful, consumer-first solutions.

• UX/UI Designers: To reimagine digital retail experiences.

• Business Owners & Retail Experts: Bringing sector-specific insights.

Why Participate?

• Access to Tools & APIs: Leverage Africa's Talking APIs and SDKs to build scalable retail solutions.

• Mentorship & Workshops: Learn from seasoned professionals and retail technology experts.

• Collaborative Innovation: Team up across disciplines to bring ideas to life.

• Cash Prizes & Recognition: Win exciting rewards and showcase your innovation.

• Make a Real-World Impact: Build solutions that transform retail and consumer services in Africa.

The winning solution will receive cash prizes as follows:

1. Winner - ₦80,000 (Join Marketplace Program)

2. 1st Runners Up - ₦60,000

3. 2nd Runners Up - ₦40,000

Africa's Talking powers communications solutions across Africa with simplified access to telco infrastructure, developers use our powerful SMS, USSD, Voice, Chat, Airtime and Mobile Data, to bring their ideas to life, as they build and sustain scalable businesses.

Agenda:

1. Warm-Up

• Introductions

• Form teams where need be.

• Feedback

• Feature requests

2. Building/hacking: Code in GitHub/GitLab/BitBucket and deploy in Docker/Automated CI/Travis CI/Bamboo

Note: This section needs additional setup.

Upon commit, the repository is built and deployed to an accessible web server or an S3 bucket.

3. Demonstration and Wrap-up

• Teams or individuals will demo what they have hacked for feedback or adoption.

Note: Carry a laptop

Opportunities:

• Network

• Innovate

• Access to our Talent bench (You can get a job or a gig on the spot)

New to Africa's Talking? Get started here.

Publish on Africa's Talking Marketplace

Marketplace : Get Call Back as a Service and Publish your plugin/app for our customer.

Developer Documentation (We welcome feedback)

New to Africa's Talking? Get started here.

Submit your Idea:

• Hackathon idea submission form

Gigs:

We would love to reach out to you so that you can build for our customers, please fill out this form with details to ensure we have your details:

GIG/HACK DEVELOPER PORTFOLIO FORM

Join community channels:

Slack:

• Join Africa's Talking slack community here

Please follow our Twitter handles to:

• @AfricasTalking

• @ElarianHQ

You can get our videos, recaps, and event interviews on our youtube channels, subscribe to get updates:

• Africa's Talking Youtube Channel

Africa's Talking community allows developers to learn skills for the modern-day African Developer. We are language and framework agnostic. All developers are welcome. This is where Africa's Talking developers community meets to build, learn and exchange knowledge.

We are helping software developers and businesses to bring their ideas to life through easy-to-use APIs easily.

Would you like to partner with us? Kindly contact the Developer Experience Team.