Addis Ababa Hub Story

CATS26 Action-Learning Journey

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

November 4 – December 15

In-Person Hackathon: December 6

Orientation: Establishing Shared Ground

The Addis Ababa Hub began with a formal orientation call intended to establish a common operating baseline for all participants.

From the outset, the programme was framed not as a conventional hackathon, but as an action-learning journey—one in which learning would be generated through direct engagement with local contexts, disciplined experimentation, and continuous documentation. During the orientation, three non-negotiable principles were clearly established:

Learning would emerge through engagement with real local contexts.
Progress would be assessed through demonstrable artefacts, not stated intentions.
Documentation and publishing were core activities, not post-programme outputs.

This orientation created a shared understanding of accountability, visibility, and collective responsibility. Participation expectations were made explicit early: sustained attendance, consistent engagement, and delivery against requirements were mandatory conditions of involvement.

Evidence:

→ Orientation Call Recording

Passcode: w0x@%Nxm

→ Onboarding Slides & Notes

Stage 1: Engaging Local Contexts

Following orientation, participants entered a structured exploration phase focused on understanding systems of place.

Teams and individuals engaged directly with their neighbourhoods, daily routines, and community dynamics. Observations, quotes, timelines, and recurring patterns were captured continuously through shared documentation tools. Over time, this work accumulated into a substantial qualitative evidence base that served as the foundation for all subsequent technical decisions.

Rather than moving prematurely into solution design, teams were required to first articulate:

Community essence maps
Repeating tensions and patterns
Lived experiences indicating systemic opportunity or failure

This sequencing ensured that later project work was grounded in lived reality rather than abstract or assumed problem statements.

Evidence:

👉 Addis Ababa – Team Artefacts

Team	Project	Community Essence Map	Stakeholder Map	Reflection
Abugida	LoyalCoin	View	View	View
Africhain Aid	Africhain Aid	View	View	View
Endubis	Gedda	View	View	View
Ethio Origin	Ethio Origin	View	View	View
Genius by Mistake	AfriTrace	View	View	View
Pixel	Saba	View	View	View
Solution Genesis	BlockPay	View	View	View
Team Axiom	The Spine	View	View	View

Workshops & Q&A: The Learning Backbone

The learning journey was structured around a consistent cadence of live workshops and Q&A sessions. Workshops were held twice weekly at fixed times, with a separate weekly Q&A session dedicated to surfacing blockers and clarifying technical decisions.

These sessions were cumulative by design, progressing deliberately from foundational Cardano concepts toward applied architecture, smart contract development, and implementation patterns. Q&A sessions enabled teams to directly map learning to their emerging projects and adjust direction in response to real constraints.

Attendance was treated as a data-integrity requirement rather than a formality. Participation was verified through live monitoring, time-bound attendance forms, screenshots, and post-session cross-verification. Unverified submissions were removed to maintain accuracy and trust in the data.

All sessions were recorded, with slides, examples, and exercises centrally organised to ensure accessibility for teams progressing at different speeds. Participants new to blockchain were directed to dedicated foundational resources, ensuring accessibility without lowering technical expectations.

Evidence: → Workshop Recordings & Slides

→ Workshop Attendance Verification Sheets

Reinforcing Learning Through Weekly Kahoots

Weekly Kahoot sessions reinforced key concepts introduced during workshops. Questions were drawn directly from that week’s material, ensuring tight alignment between teaching and assessment.

Kahoots functioned both as a learning reinforcement mechanism and an engagement tool. Leaderboards reset weekly, emphasising consistent participation rather than cumulative advantage.

Cash prizes were awarded to top performers each week and distributed within a defined timeframe, reinforcing accountability and follow-through.

Evidence: → Weekly Kahoot Leaderboard

→ Kahoot participation and prizes guide

Team Formation and Early Accountability

As shared understanding deepened, participants formed teams around common purpose, not pre-assigned challenges.

The Hub Lead ensured that each team met baseline requirements:

At least one capable Cardano developer
Clear role definition (technical, coordination, documentation, UX where applicable)
Shared workspaces and repositories established from the outset

This marked a shift from exploration to ownership. Teams were expected to move rapidly from discussion into visible planning and early implementation. By the end of this phase, all active participants were embedded within teams, and each team had articulated a concrete project direction grounded in Stage 1 insights.

Evidence:

Team Name	Team Members List	Focus Area
Ethio-Origins	members	Making smallholder farmers visible by preserving identity, origin, and regenerative practices across supply chains
Team Axiom	members	Improving trust and continuity in healthcare referrals through verifiable records between local institutions
Pixel	members	Empowering female artisans by creating trusted digital spaces that connect creators directly with buyers
Endubis	members	Designing accessible and culturally grounded dispute resolution for decentralized digital commerce
Africhain Aid	members	Restoring trust in humanitarian aid delivery through transparent, verifiable distribution records
Abugida	members	Strengthening youth-run micro-enterprises by making local trust and loyalty visible and shareable
Solution Genesis	members	Enabling Ethiopian freelancers to receive global income reliably through predictable and compliant payment access
Genius by Mistake	members	Protecting farmer identity and fairness by making origin, proof, and shared truth visible across agricultural value chains

Team formation call Recording

Internal Coordination and Alignment

From the beginning of the programme, Hub Leads conducted daily internal alignment check-ins. These sessions enabled real-time insight sharing, early identification of at-risk teams, cross-hub pattern recognition, and coordinated intervention.

This internal operating rhythm ensured that the hub functioned as a coherent system rather than a collection of parallel teams, while also enabling knowledge exchange across Addis Ababa, Kigali, and Abuja hubs.

Evidence: → Hub Lead Daily Check-In Notes

From Insight to Implementation

Midway through the programme, expectations shifted decisively toward visible implementation.

Teams translated contextual insights into architectures, user flows, prototypes, and early smart contract logic. Progress was demonstrated through concrete artefacts, including:

Early prototypes or working components
Code commits and architectural diagrams
Explicit alignment between community insight and technical decisions

Workshops and Q&A sessions adapted accordingly, increasingly focusing on execution-level guidance and problem-specific support.

In-Person Hackathon: December 6

The in-person hackathon served as a moment of convergence rather than conclusion.

Teams gathered physically to refine prototypes, pressure-test assumptions, and clarify narratives. The day prioritised collaboration, iteration, and demonstration over competition or judging.

This milestone surfaced both strengths and remaining gaps, directly informing the structure of the final programme phase.

Evidence: → In-Person Hackathon Guide and Schedule

Final Sprint: Validation, Reviews, and Submissions (Dec 8–14)

The week following the hackathon was the most intensive phase of the journey. Focus shifted toward ensuring progress was visible in documentation, while structured support and accountability mechanisms remained in place.

Consolidation & Reviews

Stage 1 materials were reviewed and consolidated to maintain continuity between contextual insight and technical execution.

Teams underwent structured final reviews designed as validation checkpoints. Each team was required to:

Demonstrate a live working MVP
Explain concrete progress since previous demos
Walk through implementation logic where required
Surface blockers clearly and transparently

Technical reviews examined code structure, architectural decisions, and implementation quality. Feedback was documented precisely, with action items, deadlines, and risk levels assigned.

Evidence: → Team Review SOP

Submission Management

Final submissions included MVP demos, source code repositories, documentation, and pitch materials. All submissions were reviewed for completeness, accessibility, and requirement alignment before being archived and published.

Evidence: → Submission Guidelines

→ Stage 1 Submission Tracker

→ Stage 2 Submission Tracker

→ Stage 3 Submission Tracker

Publishing as Part of the Learning Process

Publishing was treated as an extension of the action-learning journey rather than an administrative step. Final artefacts were organised, verified, and made accessible through the hub’s documentation structure, creating a coherent, traceable account of exploration, learning, iteration, and delivery.

Outcomes & Reflections

By the end of the programme, the Addis Ababa Hub demonstrated:

Sustained engagement supported by structured learning
Strong alignment between local context and technical execution
Clear accountability mechanisms at both team and hub levels
A disciplined transition from exploration to delivery

The resulting projects are presented as credible, grounded interventions, each with a clear lineage from lived context to technical artefact.

What Emerged

Several patterns became evident over the course of the journey:

Consistent workshops created a stable learning spine
Disciplined coordination built trust and visibility
Kahoots reinforced learning and sustained engagement
Daily Hub Lead alignment enabled early intervention
Structured final reviews converted effort into credible outcomes

Team Stories

This hub-level narrative provides the overarching account. Each team’s story offers a deeper view into how context, learning, feedback, and iteration came together in practice.

👉 Addis Ababa Team Stories

Team	Project	Team Story Link
Abugida	LoyalCoin	View Team Story
Africhain Aid	Africhain Aid	View Team Story
Endubis	Gedda	View Team Story
Ethio Origin	Ethio Origin	View Team Story
Genius by Mistake	AfgriTrace	View Team Story
Pixel	Saba	View Team Story
Solution Genesis	BlockPay	View Team Story
Team Axiom	The Spine	View Team Story