2026 ICT Innovation Week: Gov’t awards best innovators.

The closing ceremony in Yaounde on Friday, July 31, was chaired by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Libom Li Likeng Minette. 

It was in the presence of the Resident Representative of the International Telecommunications Union for Central Africa and Madagascar, Sehenoarinjakamalala Tahiry Rakotoheriniaina, who also served as Chair of the Jury for the 2026 National Competition for the Best ICT Project of the Year. 

It was placed under the theme: “Protecting cyberspace from the misuse of Artificial Intelligence and promoting digital patriotism”. This year’s national contest saw an unprecedented 631 projects submitted by young people from across the ten regions of the country. These applications were further streamlined to 20 projects by an adhoc pre-selection committee, and submitted to the final selection jury. 

The 20 shortlisted candidates later underwent a three-day intensive bootcamp at Cameroon Digital Innovation Centre. 

They were supported by a bootcamp management team of high-level experts in the fields of entrepreneurial development, cybersecurity, intellectual property, strategic communication, fundraising and the responsible use of artificial intelligence.

Enter P&T minister 

In her address, the Post and Telecommunications Minister, said the National Competition for the Best ICT Project of the Year 2026, launched on June 22, was intended to identify the best digital innovations in the country and to stimulate young people’s creativity around issues related to Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and digital patriotism.

She then said though the cyberspace has become part of daily life, it has been transformed to a tool for propagating hatred, stigmatisation of communities, manipulation of identities and enhancing divisions. 

She said government aims to help young people rise to the challenge of innovating, creating, and daring as set by the Head of State few years ago.

After devoting the previous edition to the use of Artificial Intelligence in the service of digital transformation, she said government felt it necessary to continue the discussion from a complementary angle of artificial intelligence in the service of digital patriotism. 

“Digital patriotism involves using digital technologies in a manner that respects the law, ethical principles, the nation’s best interests and the values that underpin our society. It involves protecting our data, combating hate speech, disinformation campaigns, the manipulation of public opinion and all forms of malicious use of digital technologies,” she further explained.

Outstanding projects

Fopa Kuete Duclair from University of Dschang emerged overall winner for his InReach project, a solution that translates digital content like text, audio and video subtitles into sign language in real time directly on a user’s device.

Abdoul-Hamid Oumamrou emerged runner up for his cybersecurity project called SofTarget. The project is designed to protect minors from inappropriate content on digital platforms. Meanwhile, Britney Moukoko’s Smart Agricultural Monitoring System, SAMS, won the second runner up and Best Female Prize award.

Her discovery in the agriculture sector, an offline smart farming solution, combines Internet of Things, AI mobile and Unstructured Supplementary Service Data technologies to help farmers maximise crop yields and achieve financial independence.  Cheques worth 200,000 FCFA to 10 million FCFA were awarded to the candidates during the event. 

Laureates react

Speaking to the press at the end of event, Fopa Kuete Duclair expressed gratitude to government for opportunity present his project, which seeks to help solve the problem of internet accessibility for deaf people, to the national and international community. 

Citing the World Health Organisation, he said there are 1.5 billion people in the world with hearing deficiency, of which 110 million are completely deaf and cannot access to news or digital content. 

“We are trying to develop a universal solution, without friction, that the user will be able to install once and transform his content into language of speech instantly,” he said. 

He added that: “What we want to do now, since we already have the infrastructure, is to deploy our own servers, deploy our models and to be able to publish the navigator extension on Chrome Store so that Cameroon can already start to benefit from it”. 

For Britney Moukoko, her SAMS project was inspired by childhood experience with her grandmother, a smallholder farmer, whose sole source of livelihood was her small farmland with problem of low agricultural yield and no access to markets.

“I also had in mind the realities of Cameroonian farmers because 90% of Cameroonian farmers are smallholder farmers and the majority of them don't have access to a mobile phone… there's no access to electricity. So, I developed SAMS to fit these realities,” she told The Guardian Post. 

She further mentioned that the SAMS use message technology to help inform farmers in real time how their crops are doing and provides recommendation. is solar-powered. 

“So, in places where farmers don't have access to electricity, don't have access to the internet, they can still access a solution and improve their agricultural yield by over 30%, and be able to access markets closest to them,” the innovator said. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3868 of Tuesday August 04, 2026