Back to programs

African Union 1 Million Next Level Innovation Challenge

Key Information

Organisation

African Union Commission

Status

Open

Application Deadline

15 May 2026 · 28 days left

Program Type

Challenge

About this Program

Identifying youth-led innovations that contribute to the African Unions 1 Million Next Level initiative.

Benefits & What You Get

Grants for scaling; visibility at AU summits; technical mentorship.

Eligibility

African youth aged 15-35 with innovative projects in the four priority areas.

Startups That Could Apply

See all

Hubtel Ghana Ghana's digital commerce pioneer

Trella Uber for trucks in MENA

Farmerline Ghana Digital tools for Africa's farmers

Instabug Mobile app performance from Cairo

Kasha Rwanda Women's health e-commerce

Stitch South Africa Payment infrastructure for Africa

Related News

See all

The eNaira Was Never Going to Work, and Ghana Should Not Repeat Its Mistakes Less than 0.5 percent of Nigerians had used the eNaira by late 2023. By 2025, approximately 13 milli...

Stop Calling Them Neobanks: The Pan-African Retail Bank Has Arrived Kuda is now a nationally licensed Nigerian bank. FairMoney is a licensed microfinance bank with curr...

Why Nigeria's Open Banking Framework Will Underperform Its Promise Nigeria became the first African country to go live with formal open banking on 1 August 2025. The C...

Clean Cooking in Africa 2026: The 900 Million Access Gap and the Slow Transition From Wood to Clean Fuels Approximately 900 million Africans lack access to clean cooking fuels, relying on wood, charcoal, ke...