Busia Tech & Innovation Summit 2026

Converge. Connect. Transform.

October 2026 | Busia National Polytechnic | Busia County, Kenya
Including: Hack the Corridor – East Africa’s First Cross-Border Trade Hackathon

The future is not coming. It is gathering.

Days

Hours

Minutes

Seconds

About the Summit:

From Jenga Afrihub

Busia sits at the centre of one of Africa’s most consequential trade corridors – the point at which the economies of Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Burundi and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo connect to regional and global markets. Every container destined for these landlocked nations moves through this corridor. Every truck, every trader, every sack of agricultural produce crossing this border sustains millions of livelihoods across Eastern and Central Africa. What happens at Busia determines the cost of food in Kigali, the availability of goods in Juba, and the competitiveness of businesses in Kampala.

The people who sustain this economy remain largely disconnected from the systems built to support them. Women traders carry information asymmetries, payment barriers and informal transaction costs as daily operating conditions. Smallholder farmers sit outside regional markets. Young people watch digital transformation unfold around them with no clear way in. Governments, financial institutions and development partners have invested in infrastructure, trade systems and digital platforms – and the intended beneficiaries of those investments remain, in too many cases, outside the formal economy.

The frameworks exist. The African Continental Free Trade Area has created the world’s largest free trade zone. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System has built the infrastructure for instant cross-border payments in local currencies. East Africa’s digital transformation agenda is advancing. Border digitisation systems are live at Busia. The distance is not between frameworks and reality. It is between frameworks and the people they were built to reach.

For three days, governments, continental organisations, development finance institutions, financial institutions, investors, innovators, traders, farmers and community leaders work together in one place to transform policy commitments into practical outcomes. Digital trade made genuinely accessible. Cross-border payments seamless for those who have never held a bank account. Applied technology solving real trade challenges. The communities who sustain this corridor participating as full actors in Africa’s economic integration. Busia is the living laboratory where Africa’s trade future is tested, refined and prepared for replication at scale

The continent's institutions come to Busia - to the traders, the farmers, the youth innovators, the border communities. African integration is not something delivered to communities. It is built with them.

The Secretariat - Busia Tech & Innovation Summit

The Summit Agenda Blueprint

To position the Busia Corridor as Africa’s leading demonstration site for inclusive digital trade,cross-border payments and community-level implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area – establishing Busia as the continental reference point where AfCFTA commitments are tested against reality, refined through practice and prepared for replication at scale.

Delegates

499 +

Counties Represented

Signed MoUs

Partners & Sponsors

17 +

Thematic areas

The Summit runs five tracks in parallel. Each produces a concrete output that exists after the event ends – a decision, a working product or a documented commitment. Each track also functions as a live problem domain: challenges surfaced in every session feed directly into what Hack the Corridor teams are building.

Trade Technology and Digital Commerce

Track 1 operates as a live trading floor. eCUSTOMS onboarding is designed to run in real time. PAPSS payment demonstrations are designed to cross the actual Kenya-Uganda border - settling transactions in local currencies with no dollar conversion and no intermediaries. Traders process real AfCFTA certificates of origin. Commercial bank sessions, digital lending demonstrations and a policy dialogue on the PAPSS rollout roadmap run throughout. A border rights clinic operates the full day. Target

AgriTech and Climate-Smart Food Systems

Agricultural produce dominates the Busia border at community level. The Lake Region counties are among Kenya's most productive agricultural zones and among the least connected to digital markets. This track runs live buyer-seller matching between smallholder farmers and verified cross-border buyers, demonstrates space technology, satellite-based crop advisory, soil testing and weather intelligence tools in practice, and works through agri-export pathways under AfCFTA rules of origin. Post-harvest loss reduction is a specific focus. Agricultural challenges feed directly into the hackathon.

Digital Health and Community Wellbeing

This track examines how digital systems strengthen healthcare delivery, support frontline health workers, improve data systems and expand access in rural communities. It produces a documented digital health gap assessment for the Lake Region - shared with county health departments and development partners - and surfaces specific solvable technology problems for the hackathon.

Digital Inclusion, AI and the Future of Work

Track 4 is built around economic outcomes. Youth unemployment and underemployment in Busia County remains significantly higher than the national average, with county-level survey data indicating rates above 30 percent among youth aged 15 to 35 (Busia County Adolescents and Youth Survey, National Council for Population and Development, 2021). This track builds real pathways from digital skills into employment and income: AI tools young people can use today, digital freelancing and remote work pathways, entrepreneurship connections and structured links between training and income opportunities. The Hack the Corridor finals and awards ceremony sit here. Twenty-five curated youth innovations are on display, with structured investor matching for the strongest teams.

GovTech and Regional Digital Governance

The Northern Corridor Leaders Forum, the Council of Governors session and the co-creation workshop for the Digital Economy Roadmap all sit here. County digital service delivery is showcased. Last-mile connectivity gaps are documented. The Roadmap is formally endorsed on the record. The Busia Declaration is prepared for adoption. Governance is one of the Summit's five deliverables.

The People Behind the Vision

Behind every transformative idea is a team of committed leaders, innovators, and changemakers working to turn ambition into action. Meet the individuals guiding the Busia Technology & Innovation Summit 2026 and helping shape a future where technology, trade, and opportunity converge for the benefit of communities across Africa.