In a powerful display of cross-disciplinary collaboration, Lagos hosted the inaugural Figma Africa Hackathon, a 24-hour design-and-develop sprint co-organized by Figma, GitHub, and Ingressive.
Held at the MEST Africa office in Ikoyi, the event brought together 17 high-performing startup teams, each comprising designers and developers, to tackle real-world challenges in health, education, and agriculture.
Themed: “Design. Develop. Collaborate,” the hackathon underscored a growing movement to dissolve silos between design and engineering teams.
It also reaffirmed Figma’s commitment to empowering African creators through its real-time collaboration tools and community-building efforts.
Figma Africa’s lead advocate, Namnso Ukpanah, kicked off the event with guidance on judging criteria, expectations, and a reminder of why collaboration matters.
GitHub’s Developer Advocate, Adewale Abati, also energized the room with pro tips on effective coding under pressure.
The challenge was simple in theory, yet ambitious in scope: to develop effective entrepreneurial solutions that address societal challenges efficiently.
Claire Butler, Figma’s Global Community Lead, flew in from the U.S. to witness the innovation firsthand.
“Seeing this level of talent, energy, and heart from the African tech ecosystem is inspiring,” she said, after meeting with several teams.
Entrepreneurs pitched before a three-person judging panel, each a respected leader in the African tech ecosystem.
The judging panel includes: Dara Oke, a product manager and designer with experience at Microsoft, Twitter, and Intel, who brought a unique lens on accessibility and user empathy.
Her recent work has focused on making design more inclusive through empathy-driven research and systems thinking.
Yemi Johnson, a technology maverick and Chief Operating Officer at Hotels.ng, provided deep insights into business operations, user acquisition, and online marketplaces.
A serial entrepreneur, Johnson previously exited his startup before joining Hotels.ng to scale its growth and operational backbone.
Prosper Otemuyiwa, a globally recognized tech advocate and Developer Advocate at Apollo GraphQL, who has played a pivotal role in expanding developer communities across Africa.
A leading voice in the ForLoop Africa movement, Prosper’s passion for mentoring and open-source development made him a perfect judge for a hackathon centered on community and impact.
Each of the 17 teams took the stage to pitch their solutions. In third place, Team Sirocco developed a health management platform accessible via web, mobile, and USSD for universal access in Nigeria.
In second place, Team Exolve developed a food distribution app that connects local farmers with distributors to mitigate food scarcity.
And the winning team of the 2018 Figma x GitHub Hackathon was Team Brookly, who built an EdTech platform targeting inefficiencies in Nigeria’s public education system.
Cash prizes of $200, $300, and $500 were awarded, respectively, and other perks, including access to exclusive support from Figma and Ingressive for Good.
The hackathon closed with a community-wide Kahoot! Quiz, Figma swag giveaways, and an invitation to join the growing Figma Africa Slack community.
“Design is a team sport and a very critical part of building strong technology products that solve real-life problems,” said Ukpanah in his closing remarks, echoing the event’s core philosophy. “And this weekend proved that when entrepreneurs, designers, and developers collaborate early and often, they can build not only better products but a stronger tech ecosystem.”
With Lagos as the backdrop and innovation as the focus, the Figma Africa Hackathon wasn’t just a competition.
It was a celebration of Africa’s rising digital talents and a preview of what the future holds when collaboration leads the way.
