In just 24 hours, three teams of developers inside Absa Bank redefined what innovation can look like in Africa’s financial sector. The winners of the 2025 Absa Technology Hackathon were chosen from dozens of entries spanning seven countries — all competing to design technology that could soon become part of the bank’s digital backbone.
The annual challenge, now a centerpiece of Absa’s technology culture, pushes employees to think beyond their day-to-day roles and prototype digital solutions to real-world banking problems. This year’s theme, Ignite the Future: Innovate. Accelerate. Elevate., invited teams to build technologies that could transform customer experience and make banking more inclusive across the continent.
“The Hackathon reflects the kind of culture we’re building at Absa, where innovation is a mindset shared across the organisation as we work toward our ambition of becoming a digitally powered business,” said Johnson Idesoh, Absa Group Chief Information and Technology Officer. “It’s about empowering our teams to think boldly, collaborate across borders, and develop solutions that advance our customer, client and colleague experience and embed purpose-led technology at the heart of everything we do.”
The competition drew entries from 82 teams within the Group’s Technology unit. After a rigorous shortlisting process, 36 teams were selected to participate in a 36-hour live “Hackerverse” experience from October 28, with participants representing countries including South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Uganda, Mozambique, Mauritius, and the Czech Republic.
Over a nonstop 24-hour sprint, teams built working prototypes under immense time pressure, before pitching their ideas to a panel of judges. The winners were selected across three challenge categories — Commercialisation of Fast-Tracked Ideas, AI for Impact, and Blue Sky — each recognizing distinct areas of innovation.
In the Commercialisation of Fast-Tracked Ideas category, The Solvers from Zambia emerged as winners, showcasing how regional teams are driving creative problem-solving within the bank. South Africa’s Mighty Pythons won the AI for Impact category, while Hustle Hub from South Africa and Digital Islanders from Mauritius shared honors in the Blue Sky category. Each winning team member received R25,000 in Absa Rewards or the cash equivalent in their local currency.
But the competition, organizers say, is about more than the prize money. It’s part of a broader shift at Absa — one that’s reframing how Africa’s largest banks think about technology and talent. Guided by its purpose, Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together… one story at a time, Absa is betting that the next wave of digital transformation will come not from imported systems, but from homegrown ideas.
The Hackathon forms part of the bank’s strategy to nurture in-house innovation and build pathways for digital talent across its operations. The goal is to accelerate the creation of solutions that expand financial access, improve customer experience, and promote inclusion for unbanked and underbanked populations.
“The competition is a celebration of collaboration, diversity, and the relentless pursuit of better ways to serve our customers, clients, and colleagues,” said Idesoh. “The winning ideas will now move into the next stage of validation and development, with a view to implementation within the business. I’m incredibly proud of every team that took part. Their creativity and execution have raised the bar for what’s possible.”
As African banks race to digitize everything from lending to customer service, Absa’s hackathon stands out as an experiment in turning internal talent into a driving force for innovation. In just one day, it showed that when bankers think like builders, the future of finance in Africa can be reimagined from within.