Qualcomm® Make in Africa Startup Mentorship Program 2026 – YOA

Deadline: February 15, 2026

Applications are open for the Qualcomm® Make in Africa Startup Mentorship Program 2026. As the primary initiative of its type in Africa, this fairness-free mentorship program will determine promising early-stage startups eager on making use of superior connectivity and processing applied sciences to revolutionary finish-to-finish methods options, together with {hardware}, and supply these corporations with enterprise teaching, entry to engineering session for product improvement, and steering on defending mental property.

Qualcomm relentlessly innovates to ship clever computing all over the place, serving to the world deal with a few of its most necessary challenges. Their main-edge AI, excessive efficiency, low-energy computing, and unequalled connectivity ship confirmed options that remodel main industries. At Qualcomm, they’re engineering human progress.

Benefits

• Startup cohort: Up to 10 startups can be chosen for the 2026 incubation program
• Mentorship: 1:1 mentorship with Qualcomm subject material specialists 
• Platforms: Arduino Uno Q primarily based usecase proposals welcome
• Masterclasses: Expert-led know-how coaching in areas equivalent to Artificial Intelligence (AI) together with AI-Hub, Internet of Things (IoT), Extended Reality (XR), Compute (AI-PC), 5G, Intellectual Property Law, and extra. Additional entry to know-how, enterprise, and IP coaching is on the market at Qualcomm Academy
• Stipends: One startup can be awarded a Social Impact Fund grant from Qualcomm® Wireless Reach^TM. All different collaborating startups can be eligible for a USD $5,000 stipend upon profitable completion of program necessities
• Patent submitting incentives: 
  • Reimbursement of as much as USD $5,000 for one full utility patent application filed in the startup’s nation, on the USPTO, or by way of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)
  • Eligibility for a patent submitting session hours from Adams & Adams, Africa’s main IP legislation agency.
  • Free entry to on-line IP training, together with submitting procedures for a number of African international locations, at L2Pro Africa 
• Visibility and Industry connections: Participation in a digital finale occasion in December 2026, together with the announcement of the Social Impact Fund award winner. This occasion will showcase the startups and assist speed up their enterprise success

Eligibility

• Open to startups in the African continent..
• They ought to be centered on AI, Edge Compute, IoT, XR and different advance chopping-edge applied sciences. 

Application

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to Qualcomm® Make in Africa Startup Mentorship.