Start-ups from Jordan, Madagascar and Tunisia have won the 2025 edition of the Orange Summer Challenge, an annual technology innovation competition organised by Orange Middle East and Africa (OMEA) that supports young entrepreneurs across Africa and the Middle East in building solutions to social and environmental challenges.
The awards were announced at the 3rd International Orange Summer Challenge (OSC) ceremony held on February 4 in Casablanca, Morocco, marking the conclusion of a three-month acceleration programme during which participants received training, mentorship, coaching and access to technical expertise from Orange MEA, its Digital Center network and a range of industry partners.
Jordan’s SafeGuard claimed first prize for a smart wearable device designed to prevent workplace accidents through real-time intelligent risk detection. The solution monitors conditions in hazardous work environments and alerts workers and supervisors to emerging dangers before accidents occur.
Second prize went to Madagascar’s GasNika, which has developed a system for converting organic and household waste into biogas while simultaneously producing organic fertilizer as a usable by-product. The dual-output model addresses energy access and waste management while generating an agricultural input, making it particularly relevant for rural African communities with limited grid connectivity.
Tunisia’s DripIn took third place with an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered sensor network designed to detect water leaks and optimise consumption across residential, commercial and industrial installations. The solution targets one of the most economically damaging and environmentally significant sources of water loss, applying machine learning to identify anomalies in real time and alert building managers before losses escalate.
For the 2025 edition, 369 young innovators from 14 countries participated, developing 56 start-up projects under the Startup4Good theme, with support from partners including Amazon Web Services, Meta, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), The Hashgraph Association and Dar Blockchain. Projects focused on environment, health, education and agriculture.
The three winning start-ups will receive financial, technical and business support from Orange Digital Centers and Orange MEA, including a combined grant of 50,000 euros to accelerate their development.
OMEA Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operations Officer Ben Cheick Haidara said the challenge had become a genuine catalyst for talent and innovation across the region since its founding in Tunisia in 2011. He noted that participating entrepreneurs were increasingly incorporating AI and other advanced technologies to address concrete development challenges rather than pursuing digital solutions for their own sake.
The Orange Digital Center network, through which the challenge operates, serves as a hub for youth employability and digital entrepreneurship across the 18 countries where OMEA operates. Orange MEA recorded revenues of 7.7 billion euros in 2024 and serves 161 million customers, representing the largest growth area within the broader Orange Group.
The 2025 competition represents a progression from the 2024 edition, which saw Madagascar’s Plastikoo, Tunisia’s MEPS and Cameroon’s Leevlong take the three prizes in a competition focused on the Tech4Impact theme. The rotating thematic focus and geographic diversity of winners across successive editions reflects the programme’s intent to surface innovation from across the continent and the wider region rather than concentrating recognition in any single country.
For Ghana, where Orange Digital Centers operate as part of the broader network, the initiative offers a reference point as the country pursues its own tech entrepreneurship agenda. Ghana currently hosts an active cohort of technology start-ups and innovation hubs, with the government’s 24-hour economy policy and manufacturing agenda creating new demand for locally developed solutions in agriculture, energy and logistics.
The Ghana Orange Digital Center has participated in previous editions of the challenge, with Ghanaian innovators competing at the national selection stage for international qualification.
