Code for Africa AI Sandbox Seed Grant 2026 (up to $3,000) – YOA

Deadline: March 30, 2026

Applications are open for the Code for Africa AI Sandbox Seed Grant 2026. Are you part of a Human Rights Defending (HRD) organisation in Africa that wishes to tremendous-energy your work utilizing AI instruments and methods? The Digitalise Youth consortium, by way of Code for Africa (CfA), is providing 5 seed grants to civil society organisations (CSOs) based mostly within the Sahel, in addition to neighbouring nations in West and East Africa.

Through this seed grant, chosen CSOs will produce an MVP or working prototype that successfully addresses crucial challenges together with, however not restricted to, digital rights and freedom of expression, misinformation, disinformation, hate speech, and digital surveillance. Successful candidates will create or scale options that straight help their core missions and improve their capability to function safely and successfully in difficult digital environments.

Applicants ought to have a powerful dedication to utilizing human-centred options. Responsibilities for the chosen individuals embody prototyping agile options, scaling present options with AI, optimising efficiency for actual-world use, integrating consumer suggestions, and/or making certain compliance with regional cybersecurity legal guidelines and cultural norms. Priority will likely be given to organisations with a powerful monitor report of human rights defence, neighborhood engagement, and a transparent dedication to moral AI rules.

Grantees will obtain help from CfA’s in-home TechLab, DataLab, and AI Sandbox, in addition to its design/content material groups, together with strategic help from Digitalise Youth associate establishments, starting from coverage recommendation and democratic governance suppose tanks to analysis help.

Focus Areas

Analysis & Monitoring Tools

• Develop/adapt/refine AI-powered discourse evaluation instruments to monitor civic conversations, hate speech patterns, and restrictions on free expression throughout digital platforms. Apply these instruments to monitor election integrity, advocacy actions, and the unfold of disinformation campaigns focusing on HRDs and youth.
• Implement light-weight sentiment evaluation options that may be tailored to completely different contexts together with electoral discourse, gender-based mostly violence, and censorship detection with out requiring in depth computational assets.

Verification & Fact-Checking Solutions

• Create accessible AI-driven truth-checking options that assist smaller organisations confirm info, detect manipulated media, and establish deceptive content material related to human rights points in native contexts.
• Develop sensible content material verification instruments that neighborhood members can simply deploy to fight hate speech and political manipulation in low-connectivity environments.

Collaboration & Engagement Solutions

• Design easy, safe AI-powered options that allow youth civic actors and HRDs to share info and coordinate actions whereas sustaining digital security.
• Create sensible digital instruments that facilitate grassroots organisation and neighborhood mobilisation for human rights defenders working in difficult environments.

Inclusive Access Solutions

• Develop accessible AI instruments that bridge the digital divide for ladies and marginalised communities

Grant

• The grant will help HRD organisations in prototyping or scaling AI options that straight help their core missions and improve their capability to function safely and successfully in difficult digital environments.  
• The grant quantity for all the length of the challenge is $3,000 (to help the HRD organisation’s expertise staff or to rent AI experience).  
• Grants will likely be awarded for six months, with the potential of extension based mostly on demonstrated progress, impression, and dedication to sustainability.

Eligibility

• Your organisation should be a registered non-revenue or civil society organisation with a mandate to defend human rights within the Sahel area or neighbouring nations.  
• You will need to have a devoted expertise staff or exhibit a transparent plan to rent AI experience to implement the proposed AI resolution.  
• You should present proof of a transparent want for AI-powered instruments to handle particular challenges associated to mis/disinformation, hate speech, or digital surveillance that your organisation faces in your human rights work.  
• You should commit to moral AI improvement and deployment practices, together with information privateness, equity, transparency, and accountability.  
• You should exhibit a dedication to neighborhood engagement and participatory design, making certain that the AI resolution is developed and deployed in a approach that respects the wants and priorities of the communities you serve.

Application

Click here to apply

For extra info, go to Code for Africa AI Sandbox Seed Grant.