One day. Twenty-five teams. A room roughly four times the size of b54's first Nairobi build. Build Zero was planned as a one-day building sprint — it became the clearest signal yet of how far this community has come in a short time.
Turnout blew past every projection, and the day moved fast to keep up: a spillover hall opened in real time, orders on supplies, refreshments, and food were doubled, and every team got mobile data so wifi pressure never stalled the building. There were cracks — and the builders rolled with all of it without breaking stride. That's what made it work.
Some of what got shipped genuinely surprised us, and that's the highest compliment we can pay a room of builders. Team Sonic's Nurulearn took the day across both the judges' scoring and the audience vote, earning Best Use of AI and venture funding of up to $25K. Runner-ups MedAI and DealShield are being evaluated for funding alongside them.
Because the room doubled, the individual prizes doubled too: more than twenty builders were selected for internship offers with partner companies and fully funded seats in the next Crafts School cohort.
None of it happens without the volunteers, staff, and guides who kept the whole machine moving, the mentors whose office hours turned half-formed ideas into demos, and the judges who took the work seriously and scored it on its merits. The community doesn't end with the event — Lagos is next, then Kigali in October.
Build Zero was run in partnership with Major League Hacking (MLH), whose fifteen years of hackathon infrastructure and global community made the day feel connected to something bigger. Google Cloud backed the day with cloud infrastructure and Gemini credits for every builder. Devpost powered the submissions platform that made every project visible and judgable. And Space ya Tech brought the community partnership and local roots that made Build Zero feel at home in Nairobi.
Winner. Took the day across both the judges' scoring and the audience vote — earning Best Use of AI and venture funding of up to $25K from b54's venture partners.
Runner-up across the day's judging, selected for venture funding evaluation alongside the winning team.
Runner-up across the day's judging, selected for venture funding evaluation alongside the winning team.