The competition, launched in July of each year for the benefit of students of all specialties and other project leaders, invited to develop innovative technological solutions to meet major societal challenges in order to build a more sustainable and inclusive world, which took place this year under the theme “Startup4Good: Sustainable solutions, driven by the talents of tomorrow”, reached its climax on Wednesday, December 3, 2025, when the prizes were revealed and awarded to the leaders of the innovative projects selected for this 2025 edition in Douala.
Setting the scene for the ceremony, Alain-Blaise Batongue, Director of Regulatory Affairs and CSR at Orange Cameroon, speaking to an audience of developers, bloggers, relatives and friends of the heroes of this ever-growing competition, and a host of personalities and journalists, reaffirmed the company’s satisfaction with the enthusiasm generated by the Orange Summer Challenge in the local ecosystem.
In his remarks, he praised the strong involvement of young people in this edition, specifying that 969 registrations were received for this edition (38% of which were from female applicants) and 115 project ideas, from which the 20 young competitors were selected. He also praised the high attendance at the open day organized in Douala last October, during which approximately 200 people had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of the Orange Digital Center and particularly the realities of the Orange Summer Challenge, discovering the various prototypes presented by the teams.
After several weeks of training and improvement, teamwork coached by experts from Orange Digital Center and its partners Meta, NOKIA, AWS and Dar Blockchain and the Hashgraph association, 04 projects were able to be presented to the jury and the public who evaluated each of the teams via an application called VotePad created for the competition.
Expressing his gratitude to the young creators for the trust placed in Orange Cameroon, Patrick Benon, the company’s Managing Director, will not fail to invite them to be worthy ambassadors of the Orange Digital Center in their environments, and he will also urge those of the winners who will participate in the international competition, “to carry the green-red-yellow, the colors of conquerors, as high as possible wherever Cameroon is represented.”
He will remind the audience of his great satisfaction with the public’s adoption of the Orange Summer Challenge, as evidenced by statistics revealing increases compared to the 2024 edition:
• +62.9% increase in the registration rate
• +67.8% increase in the number of project ideas
• +4.3% vs 2024 of female applications.
This upward trend, according to Patrick Benon, “reinforces Orange Cameroon’s commitment to an inclusive approach to foster innovation and address the specific digital challenges facing our country.” He added, “It is more crucial than ever to support young people, and especially young women, in the technology sector to reduce gender inequalities and promote more equitable digital development. The digital transformation, which Orange aims to guide, represents an unprecedented opportunity that must be seized.”
At the end of the voting, Team Kidjamo emerged victorious with its smart electronic device coupled with a web/mobile application to monitor vital signs, predict crises, and facilitate the management and care of people with sickle cell disease. They received a prize of 1.5 million FCFA, in addition to incubation at the Orange Digital Center, technical support, and qualification for the international final where their project will be evaluated by a world-renowned jury. Second place went to Team Mbineko, which presented an innovative initiative dedicated to supporting the sustainable and transparent management of forest resources in rural and peri-urban areas. They received a check for 1,050,000 FCFA.
In third place, the Mokine team won a check for 900,000 francs for its veterinary telemedicine and livestock monitoring system, which, through an application, allows for efficient and intelligent tracking of animal health and monitoring. In fourth place, Diamco received 600,000 francs for its intelligent water analysis and purification device, powered by solar and mains electricity, designed for rural communities, schools, hospitals, and well owners.
Organised for several years across the entire network of Orange Digital Centers in Africa and the Middle East to support responsible entrepreneurship, the Orange Summer Challenge is an international competition that takes place from July to September. During this period, in addition to being one of the flagship programmes at Orange Digital Center, it is an incubation in the form of a competition for students from several technical and technological specialties at Cameroonian universities. Each year, it is based on a specific theme around which 4 teams are formed to design, in 3 months, an innovative technological solution under the guidance of expert partners from Orange Digital Center in Douala.
