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Good practice Imported

GirlCode Pan-African Hackathon — AI, FinTech and Cybersecurity Track Reaches Gaborone

Botswana · Gaborone · See the Botswana profile · See the Gaborone profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 70% 40/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

GirlCode's 30-hour Pan-African Hackathon on AI, fintech and cybersecurity expanded to Gaborone in 2025, one of seven simultaneous host cities across Southern and East Africa, giving Botswana's young women hands-on exposure to applied AI challenges alongside six other countries.

5 up from 3 in 2024
Host cities (2025)
R100,000
Grand prize (2025)
GirlCode Pan-African Hackathon — AI, FinTech and Cybersecurity Track Reaches Gaborone

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
GirlCode, with Absa Group as headline sponsor
Period
Gaborone joined as host city in 2025, continuing in 2026
Keywords
AI/ML skills, fintech, cybersecurity, women in tech, hackathon

Context

GirlCode, a South African social enterprise, runs an annual Pan-African Hackathon themed around FinTech, cybersecurity and AI, with teams of 2-4 women aged 18-35 building and pitching solutions over 30 hours.

Results

The hackathon's footprint expanded from three countries in 2024 to five in 2025, when Gaborone joined Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Nairobi, Kampala and Dar es Salaam as a simultaneous host city, with headline sponsor Absa Group backing a R100,000 grand prize. 2026 registration materials again list Botswana as an August host location.

Conclusions

No independently verified data on Gaborone-specific participant numbers, skills gained, or post-hackathon outcomes has been published; the organisation's stated reach target of 10 million women and girls by 2030 is an ambition, not a measured result.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
GirlCode organising team, Corporate sponsor representatives (Absa Group)

Conditions for success

  • Corporate sponsorship underwriting prizes and logistics
  • Simultaneous multi-city hosting model

Common failure modes

  • No independently verified Gaborone-specific outcome data published

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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