Three months. Fully funded. Zero barriers. The most ambitious edition yet begins July 2026. Nigeria has no shortage of brilliant graduates. What it has is a shortage of structured pathways that turn that brilliance into a career. For the third consecutive year, Hordanso and AfricaPlan Foundation are joining forces to change that, and this time, we are raising the stakes. HackathonAfrica 3.0, Cohort 3, kicks off in July 2026, and it is the most forward-looking edition of the programme yet.

A Programme That Has Already Changed Lives

Before we talk about what is coming, it is worth acknowledging what has already been built. HackathonAfrica is a fully-funded tech bootcamp offering a dynamic three-month immersive training experience designed to transform college graduates into proficient junior web developers, taking beneficiaries from training to internships and eventually job placements through a comprehensive curriculum that combines project-based and hands-on learning.

The programme is entirely sponsored by AfricaPlan Foundation, a US-based non-profit organisation. This sponsorship covers accommodation, meals, technical facilitation and instructions, and every other need. Students are also paid a stipend for their miscellaneous expenses.

Since inception, AfricaPlan Foundation has graduated two cohorts totalling 40 participants. All graduates went through an internship, and most are now employed in the industry, several by the same firms where they completed their internships. As TechCabal reported, the programme has already demonstrated a track record of 100% internship placement and strong job conversion outcomes. Hordanso has been part of that story from the beginning, serving as a technical training partner, providing hands-on instruction, mentorship, and industry guidance across both previous cohorts. Cohort 3 continues that relationship, now with a sharper focus than ever.

The Big Addition: Agentic AI

Every edition of HackathonAfrica has evolved its curriculum to match where the industry is actually going, not where it was. When the second cohort launched, TechCabal noted that the programme had already introduced prompt engineering basics and modern JavaScript and Python frameworks, equipping students to leverage AI as a copilot to improve their work output. Cohort 3 takes that a significant step further.

The defining addition to this year's syllabus is Agentic AI the architecture of AI systems that can plan, reason, and act autonomously to complete complex tasks. This is not a bonus module. It is a core part of what participants will learn and build. The world is moving from AI tools you prompt to AI agents that work. The graduates coming out of Cohort 3 will understand how to design, deploy, and work alongside those agents.

At Hordanso, agentic systems are at the centre of what we build for clients across Nigeria and beyond. When we say we are bringing industry-relevant training, we mean it in the most direct sense possible.

How the Programme Works

The residential structure is intentional. It eliminates daily challenges like transportation, lack of electricity, and meals, and more importantly, it creates an environment where software development's inherently collaborative nature can be fully experienced. Participants learn to leverage each other's strengths, problem-solve together, and build the habits that define great engineers.

In Cohort 3, participants will work in pairs, with two-person teams collaborating closely on projects that address real-world challenges. This structure sharpens both technical depth and the kind of close collaboration that professional engineering demands.

Beyond technical training, the programme places significant emphasis on soft skills essential to the modern workplace including effective communication, problem-solving, and teamwork, ensuring graduates are prepared not just to code, but to contribute meaningfully in professional environments. Weekends are filled through the Knowledge Series, sessions on soft skills and leadership delivered by industry leaders from diverse backgrounds.

Following the three-month bootcamp, participants will move into an internship placement phase, where they will be placed with various establishments to gain practical, real-world experience, putting everything they learned directly to work.

Hordanso's Role: Training Partner and Industry Guide

Hordanso is a Lagos-based digital services and AI automation company. We build intelligent platforms, deploy agentic systems, and help businesses across Africa operate at the frontier of technology. You can explore our full range of services at hordanso.net.

Our role in HackathonAfrica is as a technical training partner and mentorship provider. We bring practitioners; people actively building AI-powered products into the classroom. When participants learn about Agentic AI in Cohort 3, they are learning it from engineers who deploy these systems in production every day.

As our Managing Director Mog Obahor stated when this partnership began, the collaboration provides an opportunity to harness the power of generative AI; the new oil in tech and make it applicable to different industries, while driving the vision of transforming young people in the tech space. That mission is unchanged. What has changed is the scale of what is possible. The launch of the second cohort was covered by ThisDay Live and AfricaPlan Foundation, reflecting the growing national recognition of what this programme is building.

Built for the Moment Africa Is In

AfricaPlan Foundation was created by Oni Chukwu, a technology industry veteran of over 30 years, who was inspired by the shortage of opportunities he witnessed for bright, young college graduates in Nigeria. With a graduate unemployment rate that, combined with underemployment, exceeds 60%, the need for structured, outcome-focused pathways into tech has never been greater.

The results of that commitment have already been recognised publicly. Graduates of the programme have been celebrated in The Sun Nigeria, while the wider vision behind HackathonAfrica has been profiled extensively by TechCabal; Africa's leading technology publication. HackathonAfrica 3.0 is a direct answer to that need, and with Agentic AI now part of the curriculum, it is an answer built for where the world is going, not just where it has been.

To Learn More or Apply.

For full details on HackathonAfrica 3.0 and AfricaPlan Foundation's work, visit africaplanfoundation.org. To learn more about Hordanso's work in AI automation, agentic systems, and digital services across Africa, visit hordanso.ng or hordanso.net.