• The 254 Report
  • Posts
  • Inaugural WakaWell Hackathon in Kenya Marks 5th Anniversary

Inaugural WakaWell Hackathon in Kenya Marks 5th Anniversary

Author

Gerald Kombo
September 30, 2025

The Inaugural WakaWell Hackathon in Kenya took place in Nairobi, serving as both a platform for innovation and a celebration of WakaWell’s 5th anniversary. It was a milestone moment that brought together young innovators, migration experts, athletes, and technologists to design practical solutions addressing the pressing challenges of mobility, migration, and access to opportunity.

Five Years of WakaWell

Founded five years ago, WakaWell has grown into a trusted platform for migration information and safe mobility pathways. For many African youth, it has been a lifeline, providing accurate resources on visas, jobs, and travel requirements while protecting against misinformation and exploitation.

The 5th anniversary hackathon was therefore both a celebration and an experiment: a chance to see how Kenya’s young innovators could translate WakaWell’s mission into new tools, platforms, and user-focused applications.

The Jury’s Defining Role

The jury shaped the hackathon as a collaborative process of questioning, refining, and mentoring. Representing sports, technology, storytelling, and migration, the panel embodied the cross-sector vision WakaWell has promoted since its founding.

Judges pushed teams to ground their prototypes in real stories and personas, such as young graduates looking for safe jobs abroad, athletes struggling with visa systems, or entrepreneurs scaling businesses across borders. Teams were encouraged to simplify their solutions into clear categories so end-users could instantly understand what was being offered. For migration-related ideas, jurors emphasized the need for escalation pathways to embassies, NGOs, or police contacts, ensuring tools were not just informative but protective.

Actionable Feedback for Real-World Impact

The jury’s feedback was firmly grounded in practicality. They stressed the importance of simplifying interfaces to ensure accessibility for athletes and migrants with varying levels of digital literacy. They called for multilingual options, including African languages, to expand reach. They encouraged innovators to rely on familiar platforms like WhatsApp or QR codes, reflecting how users already interact with information. And they advised the introduction of verification systems to confirm job opportunities, employers, and federations as legitimate.

This focus on actionable, user-friendly improvements meant every team walked away with a clearer path to strengthening their innovations.

Safiri: The Winning Team

After a rigorous round of deliberations, Team Safiri emerged as the winner of the Inaugural WakaWell Hackathon in Kenya. Their solution, Safiri AI, is a WhatsApp-based chatbot designed to guide African entrepreneurs navigating new markets. By providing verified, real-time information on business registration, immigration requirements, and relocation support, the platform addresses the practical challenges faced by migrant entrepreneurs.

Safiri AI stood out for its accessibility, as it is built on WhatsApp, a platform already widely adopted across Africa. It earned praise for its reliability, as it draws from official sources to reduce misinformation and ensure users can trust the guidance they receive. Finally, it was commended for its scalability. While the prototype focused on a Ghana-to-Kenya use case, the model is designed to expand across all African countries.

Celebrating the Winners

The jury praised the winners not only for their concept but for their teamwork and discipline under immense time pressure.

❝

“And yet you addressed a problem, you demonstrated the solution. By the way, we also thought your social media video was very well done. It was very tough for us to decide which one was going to win, but outstanding job to everyone in here. Honestly, we were told that you had less than 48 hours to present, build prototypes, and get to know each other. That is a very difficult task. So everyone in here should be very proud of their accomplishment. But as an athlete, there can only be one winner, right? And you guys are the winners. So congratulations.”

Another juror added:

❝

“You did an amazing job, especially for the short time you were given. Everything flowed, the solution, the problem, the tech idea. You really demonstrated teamwork. I can’t wait to see how this gets implemented in future. Congratulations.”

And with a touch of humor:

❝

“Can I say something? You managed to do it in seven minutes and five seconds. That was impressive. Congratulations.”

The closing sentiments captured the spirit of the day.

❝

“I was really impressed with the presentation, the energy, the passion, and so was everybody else here. You guys are winners.”

A Kenyan First with Broader Meaning

By staging its first hackathon in Kenya during its 5th anniversary, WakaWell signaled a new phase: from being an information hub to becoming an incubator of innovation. The winning solution, Safiri AI, demonstrated the kind of user-centered, scalable ideas Kenya’s innovators can produce under pressure.

Looking Forward

The Inaugural WakaWell Hackathon in Kenya showed how far the platform has come in five years and where it can go next. For participants, it was an opportunity to build, test, and refine solutions under the guidance of an engaged jury. For WakaWell, it marked the beginning of a new chapter: scaling practical, trusted, and user-centered innovations across Africa.

As Kenya hosted this landmark hackathon, it also affirmed its role as a hub for youth-led problem solving in migration and mobility. The hackathon was both a celebration of WakaWell’s 5th anniversary and a statement of intent for the future, with Team Safiri taking home the inaugural crown.