Vanessa Obioha
Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, recently unveiled the third cohort of its EdTech Fellowship. The selected startups were drawn from a highly competitive pool of 970 applicants.
This year’s cohort reflects a growing commitment to gender diversity and inclusion within Africa’s innovation ecosystem. With 50% of the startups led by women, the Fellowship continues to challenge the gender gap in technology and entrepreneurship, each driving solutions to improve the future of learning in Nigeria and across Africa.
The versatility of the selected solutions highlights how African EdTech startups are rising to close critical education gaps, ranging from AI-powered learning platforms and digital financial literacy tools to virtual science labs that reach rural classrooms, even without internet access. These innovations exemplify the Fellowship’s vision for scalable, inclusive, and future-forward learning across the continent.
“As we welcome our third cohort, we are especially excited by the innovative, high-impact solutions these startups are bringing to the table,” said Managing Partner at CcHUB. Nissi Madu. “The key thing for us is that we’re constantly thinking about opportunities and gaps in the tech ecosystem, and identifying startups who are building great solutions that can plug in those gaps or take advantage of those opportunities, as well as startups who can work collaboratively together to be able to achieve the great objectives and goals that we have in the education ecosystem.”
Building on the success of its first and second cohorts, the Fellowship has so far reached 676,145 learners in Nigeria. Of that number, 84% are children and youth, reflecting the program’s core objective of expanding access to quality education for young people. Encouragingly, the initiative has also achieved 53% female representation among learners.
Among the startups selected is Kryptr, an AI-powered platform bridging Africa’s workforce gap by training and connecting job-ready youth to employment opportunities. After an unsuccessful application last year, the team returns with renewed determination.
“We’ve been doing this for five years. At Kryptr,” said Kryptr’s co-founder, Ayomide Onasanya. “We are that teaching hospital for the workplace. We provide job simulations and internship opportunities for young people to actually learn by doing, enough theory and certificates…We’re bridging that gap between formal education and employment in the workplace.”
Other startups in the new cohort include Blue and Sand, Stem Lab; AI Teacha, Cloudnotte, Flexisaf (Distinction), Mavis Computel, I-Train Africa, Hiprep Online, Tespire, Smart Steward Academy, Sproutly and VarsityScape.
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