CATS Hackathon 2025 Launch: Building the Road to Nairobi

The CATS Hackathon officially launched on October 2, 2025 through the Wada Forum and a livestream on X. Over 35 participants joined via Zoom with more than 50 others following live on X. This marked the beginning of a collaborative journey that leads to Nairobi in February 2026.

Facilitators emphasized that CATS is more than a typical hackathon. Yes! it is a movement to ground Cardano’s growth in the real experiences of African builders. 

The idea traces back to Wada and the Catalyst Africa Town Hall’s efforts to ensure Africa’s participation in global Cardano Summits. The advocacy helped to establish a growing network of regional hackathons across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Kenya was selected after months of planning as a safe and accessible location for builders to meet and create together. The Africa Tech Summit will take place from February 11–12, 2026. This will be followed by a dedicated Cardano Africa Tech Summit (CATS) Day on February 13.

Roadmap:

• Hackathon phase: October 2 – December 15, 2025

• Preparation phase: January 2026

• In-person intensive: February 1–10, 2026

• CATS showcase: February 11–13, 2026

• Extended support: March – August 2026

The launch encouraged participants to first engage their communities before building. A speaker (Ekow) shared his story from Ghana which reminded everyone that innovation begins by listening to real needs. Hubs in cities like Accra, Lagos and Nairobi will support teams working on local challenges to create sustainable solutions.

Enrollment for the hackathon runs from October 16–31 and hubs are encouraged to register before November 1. Regions without a Wada presence are welcome to self-organize. Although there was no live French translation during the launch, bilingual participants were urged to share insights in their local communities. Expanded language support is planned for the in-person phase in Nairobi.

The journey ahead involves mapping community systems, collecting field data, validating user needs and building functional Cardano prototypes. As the session closed, participants exchanged ideas and showed strong interest in starting new hubs. Onboarding continues through October with the creative sprint beginning in November.

The launch set a calm yet determined tone thus, a shared commitment to community, collaboration and building solutions that endure beyond the hackathon.