Participants at the opening of DevLab 2025 in Cotonou, Benin.
DevLab 2025 launched Benin’s first national hackathon dedicated to open source software and digital public infrastructure. Held in Cotonou from December 3–5, 2025, the event challenged emerging developers to design and test a Mojaloop-based mass payment solution for pension disbursement. Pairing hands on technical training with a real production use case aligned with national digital priorities, the event was held up as a success by participants and sponsors alike.
View the complete collection of images from the event on Flickr >
A First Edition Focused on Digital Sovereignty
The Agence des Systèmes d’Information et du Numérique (ASIN) organized DevLab 2025 in partnership with the Ministère du Numérique et de la Digitalisation du Bénin, the Mojaloop Foundation and the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure (CDPI). The event was held under the theme “Open-source solutions in service of digital transformation.” It reflected Benin’s goal of strengthening local capacity, advancing open source technologies, and reducing dependence on proprietary systems.
By convening participants around a real-world payment use case, ASIN emphasized skills development tied to national digital public infrastructure — systems that support population-scale public services that supports Benin’s digital sovereignty.
Opening remarks delivered by ASIN leadership and partners.
Program Structure and Participation
Teams collaborating during development sprints.
DevLab 2025 was a two-phase hackathon dedicated to open source solutions for Benin’s digital transformation. The first phase consisted of a 20-day online training program delivered through the Mojaloop learning platform. Following this training, the 30 top-performing participants were selected for the in-person phase.
For the on-site hackathon, ASIN selected 33 participants from an initial pool of 200 applicants. Over three days, participants worked through design workshops, development sprints, and technical review sessions. This collaborative format fostered peer learning, hands on experimentation, and deep engagement with Mojaloop open source tools, while exposing participants to real world engineering constraints like those faced by national digital systems.
Mentors from ASIN, CDPI, and the Mojaloop Foundation supported teams throughout the event. Olivier Manzi, senior manager of adopter engagement and advocacy for the Mojaloop Foundation, and Nathan Delma, community engineering lead for the Mojaloop Foundation, attended in person to provide hands-on mentoring and technical assistance.
The Technical Challenge: Pension Payments at Scale
The hackathon centered on a single use case: large-scale pension disbursement. Each team received a CSV file containing 100,000 payment records, which intentionally included data errors to reflect real operational conditions.
Teams were required to build a backend service capable of ingesting the file, validating and correcting data, isolating invalid records, and generating a Mojaloop-compliant bulk transfer request.
All solutions were developed on participants’ personal laptops using the Mojaloop software development kit (SDK) for orchestration and the Mojaloop Testing Toolkit (TTK) to validate interoperability, callbacks, error handling, and reconciliation logic.
DevLab 2025 officials, partners and jury.
Evaluation and National Alignment
The event concluded with formal pitch sessions before a multidisciplinary jury composed of representatives from ASIN, the Mojaloop Foundation, CDPI, and Fedapay. Teams presented their solutions with an emphasis on technical soundness, implementation quality, and relevance to Benin’s digital priorities.
Projects were evaluated using the following criteria:
- Use case understanding (20%)
- Technical proficiency and implementation quality (30%)
- Innovation and problem-solving (15%)
- Documentation and clarity (15%)
- Teamwork and collaboration (10%)
- Presentation and demonstration quality (10%)
DevLab 2025 first place winners with event officials, partners, and mentors.
Awards and Recognition
Three teams received awards recognizing the maturity and relevance of their solutions. The prizes combined financial support with professional development opportunities.
- First prize: A one-week immersion visit to Bangalore focused on digital public infrastructure, offered by CDPI; a cash prize of 1,000,000 CFA francs from Huawei; and two years of access to the Kkiapay for Startups program from Open SI.
- Winners: Team 9 (60.43):
- Elisée Atonde
- Mencius Silverio Mensah
- Tobi Oladikpikpo
- Temitayo Ismail Gbolahan
- Winners: Team 9 (60.43):
- Second prize: Participation in the next MojaCom event offered by the Mojaloop Foundation; a cash prize of 700,000 CFA francs from Huawei; and two years of access to the Kkiapay for Startups program from Open SI.
- Second place; Team 10 (59.88):
- Sominakpon Rébécca Assongba
- Nounagnon Prince Kangbode
- Chancel Worou
- Second place; Team 10 (59.88):
- Third prize: A cash prize of 300,000 CFA francs from Huawei and two years of access to the Kkiapay for Startups program from Open SI.
- Third place Team 4 (58.45):
- Trésor Nekoua
- Stanley Honkpehedji
- Marthely Adjovi
- Third place Team 4 (58.45):
Sponsorship and Institutional Support
DevLab 2025 was sponsored by ASIN, the Ministère du Numérique et de la Digitalisation de la République du Bénin, the Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances de la République du Bénin, the Mojaloop Foundation, Huawei Benin, and the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure.
Building Long-Term Technical Capacity
DevLab 2025 demonstrated the readiness of Benin’s developer community to work on systems designed for national-scale deployment. Beyond the prototypes produced, the event expanded a pool of engineers with hands-on experience in open source digital public infrastructure and government payment use cases, including government-to-person (G2P) and person-to-government (P2G) payments.
Continuing the Work Through the Mojaloop Community
The Mojaloop Community continues to grow and welcomes senior and junior software engineers, as well as professionals with expertise in payments and financial regulation. Contributors can collaborate on open source development, testing, and implementation efforts that support inclusive payment systems worldwide. You can join by joining our Slack channel and introducing yourself.
