She Code Africa and Apify are partnering to move African women developers beyond learning how to code and toward building technology products that solve local problems and generate income.
The partnership has produced the Apify × She Code Africa BuildHer Hackathon 2026, a hybrid programme designed around the theme “Ship and Earn Africa.” It challenges women developers, engineers, AI builders, automation specialists and technical product creators to develop, publish and monetise working technology tools.
The programme is built around Apify’s “Actors,” which are reusable tools that can automate tasks, collect web data and connect information to applications. Participants will build their own Actors and publish them on the Apify Store, giving them an opportunity to turn technical solutions into products that can potentially generate recurring revenue.
This emphasis on monetisation is significant because Africa’s technology talent pipeline has increasingly expanded beyond traditional employment. For many developers, the challenge is no longer simply acquiring technical skills but finding practical ways to transform those skills into products, businesses and sustainable income.
The hackathon focuses participants on problems that are familiar across African markets. Proposed use cases include monitoring agricultural prices across Nigerian markets, aggregating scholarship opportunities for African students, tracking remote employment opportunities and transforming fragmented public datasets into useful APIs and data products. Other areas include education, healthcare, cybersecurity, financial data, legal access, travel and small-business intelligence.
Through Apify, participants receive access to platform credits, the Apify SDK, learning resources through Apify Academy and technical support from its developer relations team. Teams are expected to publish their completed Actors and use Apify’s pay-per-event monetisation model.
The partnership also reflects She Code Africa’s broader focus on improving women’s participation in Africa’s technology economy. The organisation says it has equipped more than 62,000 African girls and women with technology skills, resources and employment opportunities since its launch in 2016.
For Apify, the programme provides access to a growing pool of African technical talent while introducing developers to a global marketplace for automation and data tools. The company says its platform hosts more than 50,000 Actors and that its developer community generates more than $1.5 million monthly.
The initiative will culminate in an in-person Demo Day and awards ceremony in Lagos on September 25, following virtual onboarding and building sessions. The top three teams will receive $700, $500 and $300 respectively, while members of the top 10 teams will receive Apify platform credits.
Ultimately, the partnership highlights a shift from technology education toward technology entrepreneurship. By combining technical training, infrastructure, real-world problem solving and monetisation, She Code Africa and Apify are creating a pathway for African women developers to turn code into products—and local problems into opportunities.
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