In March, the sixth annual Africa Business Concept Challenge (ABCC) began with student teams developing business concepts to address locally relevant needs related to Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 349 students completed the challenge this year, representing 61 schools in 23 countries. Of these institutions, 13 are GBSN member schools. The virtual business concept competition for African undergraduate and graduate students is sponsored by Stanford Seed and SUNY Polytechnic Institute.
This year’s teams demonstrated a passion to improve communities’ economies, sustainability, and well-being through creative and viable business concepts in a range of industries. They produced reports, slide decks, and pitches to develop their ideas and received feedback from Investor Experts. The top six teams listed below (in no particular order) will move on to the final stage of the competition and present their business concepts to our panel of international judges, competing for a $5,000 USD prize.
Top Six Teams
Team: AfriGas
Team Members: Matthew De Barros*, Zakiyya Mather, Jaco Du Preez, Kgothatso Baloyi, Dayle Abel
University: Gordon Institute of Business Science (South Africa)
In municipality-controlled informal settlements in South Africa, many households use modern power for low-energy needs but revert to cheaper, accessible but highly polluting traditional fuels for energy-intensive tasks such as cooking meals, due to unreliable and expensive electricity. This creates health hazards, environmental degradation, and economic burden on low-income households. AfriGas is a rental-based Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) distribution model designed specifically to address this challenge. It transitions clean cooking from an unattainable capital purchase into an affordable, recurring utility service. The model eliminates the primary barrier to clean energy, high upfront equipment costs, by offering a comprehensive equipment and fuel package on a subscription basis.
*Team leader
Team: AgriFemix
Team Members: Ummu Salma Abdul Majeed*, Raudah Mohammed Yaqeen, Suraiya Suhuyini Abukari, Ummu Kulthum Aadam, Memuna Jabiru
Faculty Mentor: Muleikatu Issah
University: University for Development Studies (Ghana)
For smallholder poultry farmers in Northern Ghana, the cost of feed is a major barrier, accounting for 60–70% of total poultry production expenses. Many farmers are forced to underfeed their flocks or exit the business entirely. AgriFemix is a women-led enterprise that targets this gap by providing an affordable, nutritionally reliable, locally produced feed alternative. AgriFemix offers a science-based feed formulation made from locally available agricultural byproducts — maize bran, eggshells, moringa powder, and a vitamin-mineral premix — ingredients that are available year-round and insulated from the import price swings that make commercial feed unaffordable. The product is delivered in eco-friendly recycled packaging and backed by a supply model built on local procurement agreements to eliminate seasonal disruption. AgriFemix directly responds to customer needs by reducing feed costs, improving farmer profitability, and providing sustainable feed options.
Team: SmartMumCare
Team Members: Adejoh John*, Michael Aperebo, Lisha Hassan Vasudev, Nimatullah Ibrahim, Swithin Emeka Egwuchim
Faculty Mentor: Obichi Obiajunwa
Universities: African University of Science and Technology Abuja (Nigeria) and SUNY Polytechnic Institute (United States)
SmartMumCare is an AI-powered maternal health platform designed to reduce preventable maternal and neonatal deaths in Nigeria and across Africa. In many peri-urban communities, pregnant women lack access to continuous monitoring and early detection of complications such as pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage, and sepsis. These delays often lead to life-threatening emergencies that could have been prevented with timely intervention. SmartMumCare addresses this challenge by combining mobile technology, machine learning, and community health worker networks to create a real-time early warning system. The platform continuously analyzes maternal health data, predicts risks, and sends alerts to healthcare providers, enabling faster and more effective responses. This solution is designed specifically for low-resource settings, with offline functionality, local language support, and seamless integration into existing primary healthcare systems.
Team: SmarVe
Team Members: Brian Mwololo*, Kimunila Zhakata, Umar Kamani
Faculty Mentor: Tineyi Madungwe
Universities: African Leadership College Of Higher Education (Mauritius)
SmarVe tackles the plastic bottle recycling crisis in Mauritius through a smart, incentive-driven circular economy system. Mauritius sells roughly 100 million plastic bottles annually but recovers fewer than half, with none of its existing collection points located at points of sale or offering a reward mechanism. SmarVe is a smart vending machine that doubles as a return point: customers buy a drink, return the empty bottle on the spot, and receive a 15% discount on their next purchase. The machines track inventory and returns in real time, automatically notifying local partner collectors when bins are full, eliminating the need for a company-owned fleet or depot. The concept has been validated at a test site in Mauritius, achieving a 47.8% return rate even before activating the discount incentive — beating the national average of 43% — and projects a 62% return rate once incentives go live.
Team: BiliBright
Team Members: Andrew Mudhasi*, Patricia Nagawa, Siya Jain, Tessa Weaver
Faculty Mentor: Robert Ssekitoleko
Universities: Makerere University (Uganda) and Duke University (United States)
Neonatal jaundice is one of the most preventable causes of infant death and disability in sub-Saharan Africa. Jaundice affects nearly 1.9 million infants globally each year. In Uganda alone, where 1.7 million births occur annually, most health facilities lack the diagnostic tools they need — existing options like blood tests require lab infrastructure that’s impractical in low-resource settings, while current portable bilirubinometers are expensive and proven less accurate on darker-skinned infants. Bilibright is a low-cost, non-invasive handheld device that measures bilirubin levels across all skin tones in under 30 seconds, displaying severity and recommended days of phototherapy directly on screen. Built from locally available components for affordability, it’s designed for frontline clinicians and requires minimal training to use.
Team: Hawk
Team Members: Oluchi Ukwuegbu*, Onyeka Otike-Odibi
Faculty Mentor: Henrietta Onwuegbuzie
University: Lagos Business School (Nigeria)
Nigeria’s informal retail economy processes enormous transaction volumes daily yet runs largely on memory and handwritten ledgers. Millions of small retailers have no reliable way to know how their business is doing in real time, because sales go unrecorded, inventory disappears without accountability, and cash, mobile transfers, and receipts are never reconciled against stock movement. Store Hawk is a platform that delivers four simple daily signals to every retailer: actual profit (not just revenue), stock-out and slow-mover alerts, theft and discrepancy flags when sales don’t match inventory movement, and a cumulative verified trading history that over time unlocks credit, financing, and better supplier terms. Underneath that simple interface sits an AI-driven data layer handling demand forecasting, anomaly detection, and sales-to-inventory reconciliation — invisible to the retailer, but continuously running.