NAIROBI, Kenya, Dec 11 – Blockchain platform Cardano is sharpening the focus of its 2026 Africa Tech Summit (CATS26) on building a pipeline of investable startups, as Nairobi prepares to host the event in February amid growing interest in blockchain-backed business solutions across the continent.
The summit, set for February 13, will cap a multi-month developer programme running across 12 African cities, where more than 500 participants have been building prototypes grounded in real community problems rather than theoretical use-cases.
The initiative marks a shift from short, high-energy hackathons to long-cycle development designed to produce ventures capable of surviving beyond the pitch stage.
Organizers say the programme is deliberately structured around capability-building, with teams taken through technical mentorship, business-model refinement and investor-readiness support ahead of the summit.
Participants are also receiving guidance in applying for grants under the Cardano Innovation Fund, which backs early-stage ventures using Cardano’s blockchain infrastructure and offers runway financing for projects showing commercial potential.
“This isn’t the usual hackathon chasing flashy ideas that vanish after the weekend,” said Darlington Wleh, president of Blockchain Centre Nairobi.
“We began by asking communities: What needs to change? What problems do you face every day? Only after listening did our developers start building solutions that matter.”
Projects now in development stretch from digital-identity and financial-access tools in Nigeria and Ethiopia, to resource-tracking concepts in eastern DRC, public-service platforms in Rwanda, and community-finance solutions in Burkina Faso.
Organizers say the business prospects for these tools are expanding as African enterprises seek trusted records, efficient settlement systems, and tamper-proof certification for trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Baraka Kofa, co-founder of the Blockchain Center and coordinator of the mentorship programme, said the objective is to convert grassroots ideas into companies that can attract funding and scale.
He noted that several teams are now receiving structured support that traditionally only mature startups access.
“We’re running this for an entire year. If all goes well, we should have about 20 to 30 new companies with a year and a half of funding to take ideas from street-level observations to actual businesses,” he said.
The summit is expected to draw investors, policymakers, and enterprises seeking blockchain solutions for payments, logistics, accreditation and governance.
Organizers argue that the model being tested ahead of CATS26, where community insights feed into business development and grant-supported scaling, could help position Africa as a producer of decentralized technologies rather than a consumer of imported systems.
