When AfroTalks Lagos 2025 took over the Alliance Française in Ikoyi, it was a demonstration of what happens when Africans start building systems that believe in themselves. Among the day’s highlights, one moment stood out as the bridge between conversation and action:
AfroPitch 2025, the startup challenge that turned vision into venture in 48 hours.
Born out of AfroTalks’ mission to amplify African stories by Africans, ignite the African Dream, influence policy through research, and drive sustainable community impact, AfroPitch embodies the idea that dialogue should not end on stage, it must evolve into tangible progress.
Curated by AfroTalks and organized in strategic partnership with Mariama “MJ” Jalloh, a leading fintech and startup strategist, AfroPitch served as a launchpad for early-stage founders tackling Africa’s most urgent challenges in agriculture, fintech, AI, education, and healthcare.
The vision was simple yet radical: to prove that African innovation deserves African capital and that the future of African development lies in ecosystems built by Africans, for Africans.
From Stage to Startup
The energy was electric as the top three finalists, chosen from over 30 entries, prepared to pitch live before a diverse audience of entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors, and creatives.
The judging panel which included Dr. Ashley Milton, CEO of She Grows It; Mariama Jalloh, fintech strategist; and Bright Tenbil, founder and curator of AfroTalks brought rigor and insight to the process, blending business acumen with social impact assessment. Each pitch told a story of innovation and resilience. But one idea captivated the room.
David Ogunbanjo’s startup, NSFC (Not Safe For Children), proposed a groundbreaking “safe SIM card” designed to protect minors from harmful digital content around the world. It was a bold, timely, and deeply human solution born from Africa’s own realities, not borrowed from Silicon Valley.
Ogunbanjo was announced as the winner of the ₦1,000,000 AfroPitch Pre-Seed Grant, and Mariama Jalloh handed him the award.
Partnership as Power
AfroPitch’s success was anchored in partnership with the very principle AfroTalks Lagos explored through its overarching theme, “Matrix: Navigating Inherited Systems That Influence the African Dream.”
By collaborating with Mariama Jalloh, AfroTalks demonstrated that systemic transformation requires connection between thinkers and doers, investors and innovators, diaspora expertise and local opportunity.
Bright Tenbil, founder of AfroTalks, described AfroPitch as the “action wing” of the movement: “If AfroTalks is about ideas, then AfroPitch is about implementation. It’s how we turn dialogue into design, and vision into venture.”
Beyond the Competition
The true power of AfroPitch lies not in its grant, but in its continuity. All finalists were invited to 15-minute strategic advisory sessions with Mariama Jalloh a rare opportunity to refine their business models, align with compliance standards, and prepare for scale.
That mentorship loop, built into the AfroTalks framework, ensures that innovation doesn’t fade after applause. It evolves, matures, and multiplies.
A Pan-African Blueprint
As AfroTalks prepares for its next edition, AfroTalks Kigali 2026, AfroPitch is evolving into a continental accelerator, one that will connect East and West African founders, investors, and policymakers under a shared Pan-African economic vision.
The Kigali edition, themed “Beyond Borders: Building Systems for Africa’s Integration,” will expand AfroPitch into a multi-city initiative, creating a funding and mentorship pipeline for African founders who are designing ethical, scalable, and integrated systems for the continent.
For Mariama Jalloh, the partnership with AfroTalks is only the beginning:
We’ve proven that African founders don’t need permission, they need systems. AfroPitch is one of those platforms, and AfroTalks is the ecosystem that sustains it.”
AfroPitch Lagos 2025 was not an isolated program, it was the embodiment of AfroTalks’ ethos; turning dialogue into design, ideas into action, and passion into policy.
