From customer communication to service delivery and connectivity, telecommunications plays a critical role in how people, businesses, and communities stay connected. This hackathon challenges developers to build practical telecommunications solutions powered by Africa’s Talking APIs.

About this event

Telecommunications is at the heart of Africa's digital transformation, connecting people and businesses through voice, SMS, mobile data, USSD, and other communication channels. However, many users still face challenges around service accessibility, customer support, network communication, and access to digital services, especially in areas with limited internet connectivity.

This hackathon focuses on building innovative solutions that make communication and digital services more accessible, reliable, and useful.

Participants are encouraged to explore how Africa’s Talking APIs can be combined to create solutions for customer engagement, service notifications, USSD-based services, voice communication, mobile connectivity, and other real-world telecommunications challenges.

Whether you're building for telecom operators, businesses, communities, or everyday users, there is broad room to create solutions that improve how people connect and access services.

Objectives

• Improve access to digital and communication services, especially for users with limited internet connectivity.

• Build smarter customer communication and engagement solutions.

• Create tools that improve service delivery, notifications, and support.

• Explore innovative uses of SMS, USSD, Voice, Airtime, and Mobile Data APIs.

• Build practical solutions that address real telecommunications challenges in Africa.

Addressable Challenges and API Links

1. Customer service & support: Build solutions that allow customers to access support, submit complaints, or receive assistance through simple communication channels.

   • API Link: Voice API

   • API Link: SMS API

2. USSD-based telecom services: Create services that allow users to check information, manage services, or access digital tools without requiring internet access.

   • API Link: USSD API

3. Service & network notifications: Send timely alerts about service availability, maintenance, outages, account activity, or other important updates.

   • API Link: SMS API

4. Airtime & customer incentives: Build systems for airtime rewards, customer loyalty, referrals, promotions, or user engagement.

   • API Link: Airtime API

5. Mobile connectivity solutions: Develop solutions that leverage mobile data to provide connectivity and access to digital services.

   • API Link: Mobile Data API

6. Smart communication platforms: Combine multiple communication channels to create unified solutions for businesses, communities, and service providers.

   • API Links: SMS API, Voice API, and USSD API
     

What Participants Should Expect

• Hands-on technical sessions and practical Africa’s Talking API integration.

• Opportunities to build and test real-world telecommunications solutions.

• Networking with developers, industry experts, founders, and technology innovators.

• Mentorship and support from experienced community members.

• Opportunities to showcase solutions and receive feedback.

• Exclusive prizes, swag, and potential on-the-spot gig opportunities.

New to Africa's Talking? Get started here.

Developer Documentation (We welcome feedback)

THEME: Telecommunications Solutions

The winning solution will receive cash prizes as follows:

• Winner - ₦80,000

• 1st Runners Up - ₦60,000

• 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, Airtime, and Mobile Data APIs to bring their ideas to life, as they build and sustain scalable businesses.

Take It Further: Make It Marketplace-Ready

Winning the hackathon is just the start. Turn your build into a packaged, reusable product that any business on the Africa’s Talking Marketplace can subscribe to and deploy as their own running instance.

What Makes a Solution Marketplace-Ready

A marketplace-ready solution isn’t just a working app. It’s a packaged, reusable, deployable product. Think of it less as “my project” and more as “a plugin other businesses can pay to deploy.” To qualify, your submission should meet the following:

•  Containerized and pushed to the registry. Built into a Docker image and pushed to the AT-Container registry (manual push or a CI/CD pipeline via GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket).

•  Built on at least one AT product. Integrate with one or more of USSD, Voice, Airtime, Insights, Bulk SMS, Premium SMS, or Mobile Data.

•  Reusable by many. Unlike a private callback, a marketplace plugin is publicly listed and deployable by any customer, and each gets their own isolated instance with its own URL (e.g. https://your-app.africastalking.marketplace.dev).

•  Clearly presented. It needs a name, slug, short and long descriptions, and a logo (required; a missing logo blocks submission).

•  Configurable. Expose any environment variables customers should set at deploy time, and declare your database needs (default: none).

•  Monetizable. At least one pricing plan is required, each specifying currency, amount, billing frequency, and a description.

•  Categorized and compliant. Tag it with at least one AT product and industry (Gaming, Education, Clean Energy, Fintech, Government, or Other), and accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

In short: if a stranger could find your plugin, pick a pricing plan, click Deploy, and get a live working instance, then it’s marketplace-ready.

How to Submit Your Marketplace Solution

1.  Sign in to the Marketplace at marketplace.africastalking.dev (create an account first if needed).

2.  Build and push your image. Containerize your app and push it to the AT-Container registry using the credentials and instructions in the submission form.

3.  From the homepage, click “Create Your Own Plugin.”

4.  Complete the submission form, section by section: container registry credentials; basic plugin info (name, slug, short + long description, logo); technical details (image URL, optional Git repo, database); environment variables (optional); categorization (AT product + industry, at least one); pricing plans (at least one with currency, amount, frequency, description); and accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

5.  Submit. A confetti animation confirms success; an error toast means something needs fixing (most often a missing logo or required field).

6.  Track approval under “Manage Plugins” in the side menu, where you can view review status, see admin feedback, edit, archive, or publish your plugin.

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.

• Technology used.

3. Demonstration and Wrap-up

Opportunities:

• Network

• Innovate

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

4. Publish on the Marketplace: publish your solution on the Africa’s Talking Marketplace to be considered a winner.

Submit your Idea:

Hackathon idea submission form (This form should be filled by all hackathon attendees planning to present it will be used to reach out to them later)

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 (Anyone open to take Gigs should fill this form and it can be shared with developer attendees of AT events)

Join the community channels:

• Slack: Join the Africa's Talking Slack Community

• Twitter: @atdevskd

• X (Twitter): @AfricasTalking

• Facebook: Africa’s Talking on Facebook

• Instagram: @africastalking

• LinkedIn: Africa’s Talking Ltd

• YouTube: Africa’s Talking channel

• TikTok: @africas_talking

• GitHub: github.com/AfricasTalkingLtd

• Partnerships: email developerexperience@africastalking.com

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.