With the participation of UGFS, the total Hedera Africa Hackathon pool prize is now $2 million
Tunisia September 10th 2025 – United Gulf Financial Services (UGFS North Africa), a leading venture capital firm offering innovative companies and startups with financial support and mentoring services, has announced a partnership with The Hashgraph Association, a Swiss non-profit organization driving global adoption of Hedera-powered solutions by funding innovation, training, certification, and venture building programs, and Exponential Science Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation accelerating responsible tech adoption, via research, education, and innovation activities, for Hedera Africa Hackathon 2025, the biggest hackathon in Africa aimed at enabling the next generation of Web developers and empower economic inclusion in Africa with a digital future for all.
UGFS North Africa is allocating $1 million from its managed Fund and funding partners to invest in winning startups and projects who have participated in the Hedera Africa Hackathon.
The Hedera Africa Hackathon is the biggest Web3 Hackathon initiative combining online participation with onsite events in over 20 African cities. The goal is to attract over 10,000 participants across more than 15 countries on the African continent.
Developers, students, and entrepreneurs in Africa and globally will collaborate to build decentralized solutions on Hedera across industries such as Finance, Healthcare, Telecoms, Sustainability, Agriculture, and Manufacturing, while leveraging the convergence of other deep technologies such as AI, IoT, Robotics, and Quantum Computing. Mohamed Salah Frad, Managing Director, UGFS (North Africa) stated, “We are very pleased to be participating in the Hedera Africa Hackathon as this is core to our strategy which is to invest and help grow innovation across Africa. We trust that the hackathon will bring talented teams
and projects to the areas of AI, Greentech, Biotech and more. Working with partners such as the Hashgraph Association and Exponential Science Foundation is essential as we believe collaboration is key.”
The hackathon went live on August 1st, 2025, and will continue up to September 30th, 2025. The hackathon tasks applicants to develop blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based, scalable solutions tailored to the continent’s most urgent challenges and needs. All solutions will be built on the Hedera network – the world’s most energy-efficient and cost-effective DLT, which offers cost predictability, the highest levels of security, and the ability to support reliable, scalable, and enterprise-grade applications. Kamal Youssefi, President of The Hashgraph Association, explained, “We are proud to have among our partners for the hackathon strong players from various industries, such as UDFS, Orange Africa and Middle East, Exponential Science and others. Our efforts to equip developers and entrepreneurs with Web3 skills using Hedera platform, and funding to support digitization in Africa, cannot be done solo, but through a consorted effort such as this one. Increasing the pool prize from $1 million to $2 million will attract more innovative developers and projects and help us to digitize the African continent.” Paolo Tasca, Executive Chairman of Exponential Science Foundation, added, “Exponential Science has partnered with the Hedera Africa Hackathon because we believe in the strong potential within the continent for the development of emerging technologies. A larger pool prize will encourage more developers, projects, and entrepreneurs to join the initiative to develop their ideas into ventures that will benefit the region.”
The Hedera Africa Hackathon 2025 is operated and supported by a strong network of partners, under the experienced leadership of DAR Blockchain, a Tunisian-based Web3 Hub that has been operating in the Web3 industry since 2017. DAR Blockchain plays a significant role in magnifying the impact of this hackathon initiative across the continent and builds on THA’s previous efforts to support blockchain innovation in Africa.
For more information, please visit https://hedera-hackathon.hashgraph.swiss/
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About The Hashgraph Association
The Hashgraph Association supports training and innovation programs across multiple industry verticals. At the forefront is the digital enablement and empowerment of the public through the broad adoption of Hedera-powered, enterprise-grade solutions and applications in the decentralized economy, which include accreditation and certification. As a non-profit, The Hashgraph Association funds innovation, research, and development for the benefit of economic inclusion with a positive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impact. For information about The Hashgraph Association, visit www.hashgraph-association.com.
About Exponential Science Foundation
Exponential Science is a foundation led by visionary founders Dr. Paolo Tasca and Nikhil Vadgama, who have advanced emerging technologies through education, research, and innovation. Recognising the power of the convergence of technologies such as blockchain and AI to tackle complex multidisciplinary challenges, they founded Exponential Science as a natural evolution of their long-standing work, aiming to strive towards a more inclusive and innovative future for all. For more information about Exponential Science, visit www.exp.science/
About UGFS
United Gulf Financial Services – North Africa (UGFS-NA), founded in November 2008, operates under the licensing and oversight of the Tunisian Capital Market Authority (CMF)
UGFS-NA provides comprehensive access to the Tunisian financial market through four key business lines: private equity, asset management, investment advisory, and corporate finance
A highlight of UGFS-NA’s impact: its venture capital subsidiary has structured 20 funds and manages approximately TND 240 million—a portfolio worth around USD 80 million—demonstrating its leadership in Tunisia’s VC ecosystem
Committed to value creation, the firm invests only in enterprises that contribute positively to the Tunisian economy and have the potential to scale globally, while adhering to strong standards of ethics, integrity, and transparency https://www.ugfsnorthafrica.com.tn/
About Hedera
Governed by a council of the world’s leading institutions, Hedera is a high-performance, secure, and sustainable public, permissioned DLT network. It enables seamless tokenization of real-world and digital assets with unmatched performance, security, and compliance. From regulated security tokens to NFTs, Hedera empowers the efficient creation of diverse asset types by providing enterprises and developers with robust open-source tools to unlock illiquid assets and drive the evolution of financial markets. For more information about Hedera, visit www.hedera.com
