Published on , 6 Oct, 2026

Abidjan, Ivory Coast – 20th September, 2026

The Zambia University College of Technology is pleased to announce the outstanding achievement of Nachula Nachamba, a third-year Software Engineering student, who represented Zambia at the Pan-African Yango STEM Fellowship 2026.

Nachamba was selected as one of only six fellows from Zambia for the programme, which brought together 24 young innovators from six African countries: Zambia, Ghana, Senegal, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Côte d’Ivoire. The fellows were selected from a competitive pool of more than 600 applicants.

As part of the fellowship, participants were placed into mixed-country teams and taken through a practical innovation journey covering problem identification and research, solution design, business modelling, prototyping and final pitching.

Nachamba served as Technical Lead for Team Bloom, an inter-country team of four fellows. The team developed JxtTap, a cashless payment solution designed to make payments for public transportation more convenient and accessible.

Following the development and refinement of their solution, the fellows travelled to Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, for the fellowship's two-day Graduation Programme and Pitch Day, where the six teams presented their innovations.

Team Bloom emerged third overall, earning a third-place award and a cash prize for JxtTap.
Reflecting on the experience, Nachamba highlighted the fellowship as an opportunity to strengthen both technical and leadership capabilities while collaborating with fellow innovators from across Africa and presenting a technology-driven solution on an international platform.

The 2026 fellowship produced six projects addressing various challenges across the continent, including cashless payments for informal transport, digital financial identity for informal merchants, medicine supply visibility for community health workers, cross-border job matching, smart waste collection and recycling and low-cost water-quality testing for rural communities.

Nachamba's achievement demonstrates the potential of ZUT students to apply their technical knowledge to real-world challenges and compete on international innovation platforms. It also reflects the University's commitment to developing graduates equipped with practical technological, problem-solving and leadership skills.

The Zambia University College of Technology congratulates Nachula Nachamba and Team Bloom on this achievement and wishes them continued success as they pursue technology-driven solutions to challenges facing communities across Africa.

Issued by:
Emmanuel Musaluka MZIM
Marketing and Business Development Manager
Phone: 0979735461

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