She Code Africa has partnered with Apify to launch the Apify × SCA BuildHer Hackathon 2026, a programme aimed at helping women developers across Africa turn their technical skills into working technology products that can generate income.
Under the theme “Ship and Earn Africa,” the hybrid hackathon will challenge women developers and technical builders to identify real-world problems and create practical digital solutions. Participants will build, publish and monetise their own Apify Actors, which are web scraping and automation tools hosted on the Apify Store.
The programme is designed to move participants beyond prototypes. Teams will be expected to develop working tools that can be published and monetised. This gives participants practical experience in taking an idea from development to a product that can reach users and create economic value.
“At She Code Africa, we want women to have more than access to technology; we want them to have the opportunity to build with it, solve problems that matter to their communities and create economic value from what they build,” said Ada Nduka Oyom, Founder & Executive Director of She Code Africa.
She said the partnership with Apify provides women developers with a practical opportunity to build, publish and monetise their own tools while creating solutions for challenges across the continent.
Building Solutions for African Markets
The partnership combines She Code Africa’s community of women in technology with Apify’s web automation and data infrastructure. According to the hackathon programme, Apify currently hosts more than 50,000 Actors, while its developer community generates more than US$1.5 million each month.
Participants will develop solutions across areas such as agriculture, education, financial data, cybersecurity, jobs, healthcare, legal access, travel, small-business intelligence and data technology.
Potential projects include monitoring agricultural prices across Nigerian markets, bringing scholarship opportunities for African students into one place, tracking remote jobs for African developers and turning fragmented public datasets into useful APIs and data products.
The hackathon is open to women developers and engineers, AI builders, indie hackers and product builders. Students and early-career developers can also participate if they have the coding skills needed to build and ship a working technical project.
Participants will receive access to free Apify accounts, platform credits, the Apify SDK and learning resources through Apify Academy. They will also receive technical support from Apify’s Developer Relations team throughout the build period.
Each team will be required to publish its completed Actor and use Apify’s PPE monetisation model.
Saurav Jain, Senior Developer Community Manager at Apify, said the programme is intended to help developers move from building prototypes to creating products with users and income.
“The best thing about the Apify community is that anyone can build a tool, publish it, and start earning from it the same week,” Jain said.
He added that African women developers are already addressing local problems, but often lack a clear path from a working prototype to a product that can generate income.
From Hackathon Projects to Sustainable Products
The virtual hackathon onboarding and build session will take place on Thursday, September 24, 2026. An in-person Demo Day and Awards Ceremony will follow on Friday, September 25, 2026, in Lagos.
Teams will present their solutions to a judging panel made up of external judges and Apify representatives. Selected finalists will move on to the final presentation round.
The top three teams will receive US$700, US$500 and US$300 respectively. Members of the top 10 teams will also receive Apify platform credits.
The three winning teams will take part in a post-hackathon workshop with Apify’s Developer Relations team and She Code Africa. The workshop will support the continued development of their projects after the competition.
The initiative creates a pathway for African women to participate in the technology economy not only as developers, but also as creators of products with potential commercial value. It also gives participants an opportunity to apply their technical skills to practical challenges affecting businesses, communities and consumers across Africa.
