Injini, supported by funder Coefficient Giving, has launched an eight-month AI for Education Venture Builder and Incubation Programme. The initiative helps pre-formed teams take early-stage AI edtech ideas through development to launch market-ready startups.
The programme, which seeks to address persistent educational barriers, will test AI tools directly in African classrooms to evaluate their practical value. The most effective projects will receive funding and support to scale accessible, low-cost tools for students, teachers, and founders.
"We've spent years engaging with brilliant people across the region who understand education problems intimately, but lack the team, capital, or clear path to build a solution," said Krista Davidson, executive director at Injini.
"Add to this that Africa is significantly underrepresented in the data training AI tools. If we don't build our own solutions now, we risk edtech that simply doesn't work for African classrooms. This venture builder is aimed at closing these gaps."
The eight-month initiative supports 12 pre-formed teams (36+ African change-makers total) across five key themes: foundational learning; teacher capacity & classroom support; learner pathways & futures; inclusion & access; and ecosystem & engagement.
Programme structure and deliverables
Phase 1: Venture build (five months) – all 12 teams
Teams move month-by-month from problem validation and customer research through solution design, building a functional AI-powered MVP, and executing a live pilot to generate real-world usage and value data. All 12 teams receive hands-on expert support, user testing, business canvas, brand, and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) support.
Phase 2: Incubation (three months, April–June 2027) – top 5 teams
The five selected ventures progress directly into a three-month incubation phase focused on developing a market-ready product, strengthening their business model canvas, building a go-to-market strategy, and receiving MEL support; building towards products and organisations that last well beyond the programme itself. These five ventures also receive equity-free seed capital of $25,000 each to continue their journey.
Eligibility and how to apply
Applications are open to small teams, with three or more co-founders preferred, though smaller or larger teams will be considered if applicants can demonstrate that they can fully engage with the programme and meet the founder experience and skill requirements.
Teams must cover three core roles: a builder who can bring the product to life, a context lead with lived experience or deep understanding of the problem, and a commercial or operations lead who can bring all the pieces together.
All team members must be based in South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, or Zimbabwe; have at least two years of relevant working experience each; and be at the ideation stage, with a concept ready to be refined and developed, but not yet launched.
Those who make it into the programme will need to attend a few in-person engagements in Johannesburg, South Africa, with costs covered by the programme.
"For this programme, we are looking for people who've lived close to a real education problem – a teacher who's watched literacy gaps widen for years, a developer who's tried to build something for a school and hit a wall, someone who has an idea of why the current tools don't work and wants to change that.
“If that's you, and you can pull together a small team to build with, this program is designed to take you from a good idea to a working, tested venture," says Davidson.
Applications open 7 September 2026 and close 27 September 2026, and will be evaluated on a rolling basis.
Interested candidates can read more about the program and apply at injini.africa/ai-for-education.
