PUBLIC EVENT
The Africa Prize Final is an annual event that celebrates innovation talent from across the African continent. Each year, the final event is hosted in a different African nation and for 2026, we are excited to be returning to South Africa, the place where it all started 11 years ago. This full circle moment will be made even more special, as we have former South African rugby union player Bryan Habana as our host for the occasion.
Join us for a showcase and celebration of African engineering excellence, as 16 innovators from 11 countries take to the stage to pitch their businesses to our panel of expert judges and live audience. This event is the conclusion to eight months of training and mentoring, giving them the opportunity to practice what they have learned, in their bid to be announced as the winner of the Africa Prize, taking home £50,000 to further their impact.
You will hear to get from guest speakers, including an appearance from 2025 Africa Prize winner and 2026 Forbes Africa's 30 under 30 Elly Savatia, who will be taking to the stage again to share his progress since winning with his innovation Terp 360.
The Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, founded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, awards commercialisation support to African innovators developing scalable engineering solutions to local challenges.
Alongside the overall winner, the three remaining finalists will each receive £10,000 to help them turn their engineering innovations into scalable businesses that can transform the continent. Furthermore, as part of the audience, you will get the opportunity to vote for the shortlist pitch that wins the £5,000 ‘One-to-Watch’ award.
Please refer to the More details tab for information on the judges and shortlist.
Programme*
| SAST | Timings are South Africa Standard Time |
| 5.30pm | Event begins |
| 8.30pm | Event ends |
* Programme subject to change
Photography/filming notice
Please note that photography/filming may take place during this event. All photographs and videos will be securely stored on the Academy’s servers and used for editorial, marketing and media use by the Academy and selected press or industry media. Please let us know if you do not agree to this processing. Please refer to our General Privacy Policy for more details
Venue and accessibility
It is very important to the Royal Academy of Engineering that our events are accessible to all. If you have any accessibility requirements, please contact the Events team more than one week in advance of this event so that necessary arrangements can be made. Contact details: [email protected].
Diversity monitoring form
The Academy is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion and one of our goals is to develop an engineering community fit for the future. To help us achieve this, we would like to collect some basic anonymous data about the event attendees. If you would like to help, please complete the diversity monitoring form by logging into your user account on our website and completing ‘Update my D&I data’.
Sir John Lazar CBE FREng
President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Sir John serves as Chair of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which empowers young people through computing and digital technologies. He is also a co-founder, General Partner, and a Limited Partner at Enza Capital, which supports tech-driven solutions to major challenges in Africa. He serves on several African tech company boards, and was previously Chair of What3words.
Bryan Habana
Born in Johannesburg, Gauteng, Bryan Gary Habana is a former Rugby Union player for South Africa.
He started his professional career with the Golden Lions and announced himself on the world stage in 2004 against England, aged 21. Over the following 13 years he became one of the finest wings South Africa has ever produced, amassing 124 caps, second only to Victor Matfield's 127, and finishing as the most prolific try-scorer in Springbok history and the second-highest in the history of the international game.
His defining season came in 2007, when a series of electrifying performances carried South Africa to World Cup glory. His eight tries in that tournament equalled Jonah Lomu's 1999 record, and the year closed with his being named IRB Player of the Year.
Bryan retired in 2018 and has since started a lot of pursuits - he has moved into business with the fintech venture Paymenow, works as an ambassador for HSBC and Mastercard. He offers punditry for ITV, Channel 4 and Amazon Prime Video and as Chairperson of Laureus Sport for Good South Africa, he remains committed to giving back.
Elly Savatia
Elly Savatia is a Kenyan social entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Signvrse, an AI accessibility company building sign-language infrastructure for the platforms, businesses and public services people already use. Signvrse’s ambition is to make sign language as natively available across technology as text, audio and captions are today.
Last year, Elly was named the 2025 winner of the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation, impressing the judges with Signvrse’s flagship platform Terp360, which translates speech and text into sign language in real time through expressive 3D avatars.
Rather than building another standalone accessibility application, Elly and his team are positioning Signvrse as an accessibility layer for the global technology ecosystem, technology that can be integrated into the products and services already reaching millions of people.
Elly was named one of Forbes Africa’s 30 Under 30, a Mandela Washington Fellow, and alumnus of the Google.org Generative AI Accelerator, through which Signvrse received $2 million to advance its technology and impact.
In 2026, Elly debuted Signvrse’s real-time technology at Unstoppable Africa during UN General Assembly High-Level Week in New York and also participated in the African Union–United Nations Top Table.
His work reflects a larger conviction: globally relevant technology can be built in Africa for communities historically underserved by technology.
This year's shortlist are as follows. Click on their name for more information:
Johannes Amo-Aye, Ghana
Moustapha Diop, Senegal
Millicent Kariuki, Rwanda
Allen Kimambo, Tanzania
Faith Kuya, Tanzania
Naom Monari, Kenya
Alice Muhuhu, Kenya
Mochesane Mpali, Lesotho
Tadala Mtimuni, Malawi
Tafadzwa Kalisto Munzwa, Zambia
Royford Mutegi, Kenya
Sincengile Ntshingila, South Africa
Chidi Nwaogu, Nigeria
Derick Nwasor, Nigeria
Mamane Kabirou Ousseini, Niger
Dyllon Randall, South Africa
The judging panel for the Africa Prize final are as follows:
Rebecca Enonchong FREng (Chair) – Founder and CEO of AppsTech and I/O Spaces
Sewu-Steve Tawia (Deputy Chair) – Managing Partner of Jaza Rift Ventures.
Ian Shott CBE FREng – Founder and Executive chair of ARCINOV, Managing Director at Shott Trinova and Director of Arctoris
Yewande Odomosu – Managing Partner at HoaQ Ventures Fund.
Richard Wylde FREng – Managing Director of Thomas Keating Ltd.
Guest judge
Neo Hutiri - Founder of Pelebox and former Africa Prize Winner