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2011–2026
“The best thing we ever built wasn’t a product or a programme.
It was a place where people could become who they were supposed to be.”
“The best thing we ever built wasn’t a product or a programme.
It was a place where people could become who they were supposed to be.”
In May 2011, four people, Lukonga Lindunda, Bart Cornille, Simunza Muyangana and Silumesii Maboshe, made a bet that Zambia needed a technology hub of its own. Armed with seed funding from the UK's Indigo Trust and a single borrowed room inside Lusaka's Ministry of Education complex, they launched BongoHive.
BongoHive was co-founded in May 2011 with seed funding from the Indigo Trust, UK.
In December 2012, BongoHive hosted the Random Hacks of Kindness Hackathon, a Peace Corps Innovation Challenge, and a group of volunteers and local developers sat down to solve one of Zambia's quietest but most consequential problems: language.
The Random Hacks of Kindness Hackathon was hosted at BongoHive in December 2012, producing the first prototype of Bantu Babel.
Most hackathon projects end when the weekend ends. This one became an app on your phone. In March 2013, Tony Tseng, Melissa Stetler and Rasa Kent, Peace Corps volunteers, launched Bantu Babel on the Google Play Store.
Bantu Babel launched on Google Play in March 2013. BongoHive secured Google for Entrepreneurs funding the same year.
In November 2014, BongoHive hosted Zambia's first Startup Weekend, and 54 hours changed what a generation of Zambian founders believed was achievable. The winning product was Fixer, a platform connecting Lusaka homeowners and businesses with verified tradespeople.
Startup Weekend Lusaka was hosted at BongoHive, November 28–30, 2014. Fixer won first place.
Daryl Lukas had been part of BongoHive's community since December 2011. In 2015, he entered the Google Apps Competition for Sub-Saharan Africa with Fist Drive: an Android application that used a simple fist-bump gesture to instantly transfer files via Google Drive.
Daryl Lukas, BongoHive community member since December 2011, reached the Google Apps Sub-Saharan Africa semi-finals with Fist Drive in 2015.
In September 2016, Mwiza Simbeye walked into BongoHive's first AgriHack with a clear purpose. Zambianthe farmers were in crisis. The fall armyworm had begun devastating maize crops. He and co-founder Patrick Habowa Sikalinda spent a weekend building AgriPredict.
Mwiza Simbeye and Patrick Habowa Sikalinda founded AgriPredict at BongoHive's AgriHack 2016. The platform now supports over 50,000 farmers and won the Slush Global Impact Accelerator.
Gilbert Mwale understood a problem that every smallholder farmer in Zambia knows intimately: getting the right agricultural inputs to the right farm, at the right time, at a fair price. Through BongoHive's Launch Accelerator 5, he built eMsika.
Gilbert Mwale founded eMsika through BongoHive Launch Accelerator 5, 2017. eMsika went on to serve 1,200+ farmers and became a Village Capital portfolio company.
Muzalema Mwanza didn't set out to build a social enterprise. She set out to fix something that had frustrated her during her own pregnancy in Zambia. In 2018, she stood on the stage of the Slush Global Impact Accelerator in Helsinki, Finland, and won.
Muzalema Mwanza won the Slush Global Impact Accelerator in Finland, 2018. The Duke of Sussex visited BongoHive the same year.
Over 70 fintech companies applied for five spots. That was the opening signal of FinTech4U, Zambia's first dedicated fintech accelerator, launched in 2019 in partnership with the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).
OnyxConnect graduated from FinTech4U Cohort 1, BongoHive/UNCDF, 2019.
When COVID-19 reached Zambia in March 2020, it tested whether institutions built for proximity could function without it. BongoHive's answer was to move. Every programme shifted online.
FinTech4U Cohort 2 ran entirely virtually in 2020. BongoHive originated the concept for ZBAN, Zambia's first angel investment network.
In June 2021, BongoHive and UNCDF published the Regulatory Playbook for Zambian FinTechs, and for the first time, a fintech founder in Zambia could open a single document and understand the regulatory landscape they were operating in.
The Regulatory Playbook for Zambian FinTechs was published by UNCDF and BongoHive in June 2021. BongoHive Group was formally established.
In January 2022, seventy developers and entrepreneurs came to BongoHive for the MTN MoMo Hackathon. Ten teams reached Pitch Day. Their products spanned agriculture, education, digital health, e-commerce, finance, gaming, transport and philanthropy.
The MTN MoMo Hackathon was co-hosted by BongoHive, MTN Zambia and Channel VAS, January 2022. The Hive Coworking Space launched formally the same year.
Zanga Musakuzi was not a medical professional. He was a developer who had spent years noticing the same gap: in Zambia, finding the right clinic, the right specialist, or an open pharmacy required knowing the right people.
Zanga Musakuzi's MedSearch Zambia won first place at Zambia's first Digital Health Hackathon, co-hosted by BongoHive and IHM Southern Africa, December 7, 2023.
In 2024, BongoHive joined the USAID DigiZambia consortium, and for the first time, its reach extended directly into the institutions that run Zambia.
BongoHive joined the USAID DigiZambia consortium in 2024, extending digital skills programming to government institutions across Zambia.
In March 2025, Zama Bbuku and Lwando Bbuku stood in front of investors at the Women in Tech Zambia Demo Day and presented Cherrypick: $158,000 in cumulative revenue, 56% year-on-year growth, and a $500,000 raise in progress.
Women in Tech Zambia 2025. AI Lab trained 665 participants. GSD Digital Portal launched. IdeaSpring platform grew to 460+ users.
Zambia’s leading innovation hub.