The Hashgraph Association and Exponential Science have announced the winners of the 2025 Hedera Africa Hackathon, closing an event that organizers described as the largest Web3 hackathon to date. According to the organizers, the competition brought together more than 45,000 participants and 13,000 developers across 20 hubs in Africa as well as online channels, resulting in over 1,300 project submissions.
All submissions were built on Hedera’s distributed ledger technology and aimed at addressing infrastructure gaps in emerging markets. The organizers said the scale of participation and the range of use cases highlighted a growing focus on practical blockchain applications rather than purely speculative concepts. The event was supported by a $1 million prize pool, making it one of the more heavily funded regional hackathons in the Web3 sector.
Greenafrica Takes the Top Award
The top “cross-track champion” award went to Greenafrica, a Nigeria-based environmental verification platform. The team received the event’s highest individual prize of $100,000. According to the announcement, Greenafrica is designed to enable transparent tracking of sustainability initiatives, positioning it within the growing category of blockchain-enabled verification and reporting tools.
Other leading winners included Egypt’s Carboni Renewable Energy Certificate Platform, which finished second overall, and Effisend X Africa from Mexico, which took third place with an AI-powered payment routing system. The presence of winners from different regions also underscored the international reach of the hackathon, despite its core focus on Africa’s developer and startup ecosystem.
Focus Shifted Toward Real Infrastructure
The organizers divided the competition into four major tracks: on-chain finance and real-world assets, DLT for operations, immersive experiences, and AI and decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN). Rather than emphasizing conceptual Web3 experiments, the 2025 edition reportedly saw more teams building pragmatic tools for real-world deployment.
Among the examples highlighted by organizers were systems for cross-network payments and secure medical record management. That trend is notable because it suggests that builders are increasingly targeting sectors where distributed ledgers can solve operational, verification, and coordination challenges. In emerging markets, these practical use cases are often viewed as more important than consumer-facing crypto speculation.
Kamal Youssefi, president of The Hashgraph Association, said the event reached “historic heights” and reflected the depth of talent and ambition across Africa and beyond. He added that Hedera has maintained a long-term commitment to enabling global innovation and supporting real utility. While the statement is promotional in tone, it also aligns with the organizers’ broader message that blockchain adoption in emerging markets will depend on solving concrete infrastructure problems.
New Investment Committee Announced
Alongside the award announcements, The Hashgraph Association revealed that it has launched a new investment committee. The body is intended to make multi-million-dollar commitments to strategic partnerships and provide both capital and mentorship to developers building in emerging markets.
The announcement is significant because it extends the hackathon’s role beyond talent discovery. Instead of ending with prize distribution, the organizers appear to be building a pathway for promising teams to secure longer-term support. In practice, that could help early-stage builders move from prototype development to pilot deployments and commercial partnerships, although no additional funding figures or recipient details were disclosed in the report.
Paolo Tasca, executive chairman at Exponential Science, said that any strong, innovative, and responsible technical ecosystem starts with education. He noted that the hackathon demonstrated how participants can progress from learning into building meaningful infrastructure at scale. His comments reflect a common strategy in blockchain ecosystem development: pair education, developer tooling, and targeted capital in order to turn hackathon activity into sustainable startup formation.
Backers and What Comes Next
The hackathon was co-funded by The Hashgraph Association and Exponential Science in partnership with Orange Digital Center, and it was operated by Dar Blockchain. Supporting partners included Sygnum Bank and the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The involvement of institutions from finance, education, and market infrastructure suggests that organizers are trying to position the event at the intersection of developer engagement and real-world industry adoption.
The Hashgraph Association has confirmed that the hackathon will return in 2026. However, details about the next edition’s location, structure, and thematic tracks have not yet been released. For now, the 2025 results offer a snapshot of how blockchain-focused innovation in Africa is evolving: fewer abstract ideas, more infrastructure-oriented builds, and stronger efforts to connect developer communities with institutional support.
At a time when parts of Africa’s Web3 sector have faced softer investment conditions, the scale of this event may be read as a signal that developer interest remains strong. Whether that momentum converts into lasting companies and widely used products will depend less on hackathon participation numbers alone and more on the availability of follow-on funding, enterprise partnerships, and execution after the competition ends.