Meta, in partnership with Data Science Africa, has selected five African startups as winners of the Llama Impact Grant for Startups and Researchers, each leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver groundbreaking solutions across diverse sectors.
The announcement was made this week at the UN General Assembly’s Unstoppable Africa 2025 event in New York, with two of the winning startups based in South Africa and one each in Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda.
According to Connecting Africa, the initiative, launched in March 2025 as part of Meta’s global Llama Impact Grants program, enables startups, researchers, and innovators across sub-Saharan Africa to use Meta’s open-source large language model, Llama, to address some of the region’s most urgent challenges.
Each of the winners receives $20,000 in funding along with technical mentorship and networking opportunities.
Meta said the program reinforces its broader commitment to strengthen Africa’s AI and innovation ecosystems, with a focus on scalable solutions in healthcare, education, agriculture, and digital accessibility.
The 2025 grant recipients are
— Vambo AI (South Africa), which develops proprietary and open-source models powering translation, transcription, generation, and search across more than 60 African languages to drive digital inclusion and innovation.
— PropelMapper (South Africa), which provides agriculture advisors with AI tools for tailored farmer podcasts, professionalized reports, and satellite imagery alerts to boost productivity and food security.
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— Radease (Nigeria), which equips Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors with WhatsApp-based AI tools that expand access to trusted health information in underserved communities.
— TeenApp (Uganda), created at Makerere University’s AI and Data Science Center, which offers responsible AI-powered digital health services and youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health education.
— and Easy Read Africa (Rwanda), which simplifies complex documents into text, visuals, and natural voice narration to make information accessible to people with cognitive and learning challenges.
“We received an incredible number of applications this year, reflecting the vibrant and growing AI ecosystem across Africa,” said Sherry Dzinoreva, director of public policy, programs, campaigns, and product for Africa, Middle East, and Turkey at Meta.
She added that the selected projects “exemplify the spirit of innovation and impact that the Llama Impact Grant stands for,” noting, “We are excited to support their journeys and look forward to seeing the positive change they will bring to their communities and beyond.”
Meta emphasized that its family of Llama AI models has been downloaded over one billion times globally.
The latest version, Llama 3.3, is open source and freely available for organizations to use, adapt, and build upon.
The Llama Impact Grant, first launched in October 2023 as a global program, seeks to identify and scale innovative applications of Llama in tackling challenges in education, health, agriculture, and digital inclusion.
Since its inception, it has attracted more than 800 applications from over 90 countries.
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Image Credit: punchng.com
