Local Ghanaian Innovations Winning Globally: More vim to the WSA Global Winners 2025 from Ghana

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For many years, I have been recommending Ghanaian startups to be nominated for the World Summit Awards (WSA), as long as I have been blogging about major developments in the Ghanaian tech scene. The World Summit Awards (WSA) annually honour tech innovations that are competitive globally that demonstrate impact, creativity, as well as sustainability aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There have been multiple Ghanaian winners in the past, including mPedigree (2009), Farmerline (2012), Afrocomix by Leti Arts formerly known as Leti Games (2018), Naa Sika (2021). For the 2024 cycle, in an unprecedented showing, 3 of the 40 winners globally were from Ghana. They were the Achieve Investment App by Petra, Chango by IT Consortium and Khaya AI —by the Ghana NLP Project. Australia had 4 winners for this cycle. In 2025, Ghana maintained 3 winners and this time, we lapped the global field with the most honorees! #MoreVimNews indeed!


Abena.Ai has been shortlisted in the WSA Inclusion & Empowerment category, Vitara in the , and Sanasana in the Environment & Green Energy category. For more about the Ghanaian winners, etc, visit the WSA website. 

Abena AI — Offline Voice Assistant in Local Languages

I first got to know Nana Ghartey circa 2016 when his app Real Piano Teacher became more popular. It has more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store, providing piano lessons and with over 200 instruments. For Ghanaian built apps to get 10,000 downloads around 2016 meant it was doing really well. Through research, I realised he had also built multiple Bible apps in Twi, Yoruba and Swahili. He’s been one of the top Ghanaian app developers for years. He has also built Alikoto 3D (after a popular Ghanaian game) and Rap AI / Dub AI (making AI-powered music videos and mashups).

I first learnt about Abena.Ai when he released it, because we had connected prior. It is an offline voice AI assistant supporting local Ghanaian languages (Twi) and other functionalities critical for areas with limited internet access. I believe voice apps are extremely important for Ghana and neighbouring countries due to our lack of great internet everywhere. My work with the Kosmos Innovation Center around the agricultural value chain, traveling to various hinterlands, has made me care even more about this. Siri is used a lot in Ghana, but Abena.Ai is a real game changer for us. For this reason, I felt it would be a strong candidate for the WSA and recommended it. The app also recently won the Best AI for Social Good at national AI awards and inclusion at international tech showcases

It is similar to Khaya AI, another Ghanaian winner from the 2024 cycle which focuses on African language translation and speech recognition for multiple African languages (including Twi and Yoruba). Some other organizations in this space include AI4D African Language Program, the Voice of a Continent initiatives, Mozilla Common Voice / DeepSpeech community models, Masakhane, etc. Kasahorow is another organization to watch in this space, and it was incubated from GhanaThink in 2005.

Vitara — Agritech for Climate-Smart, Traceable Farming

I had been hearing about Sommalife aka Vitara as a Ghanaian startup since covid. It has a Ghanaian startup in the agric space that has benefitted from the SAIS Investment Readiness Programme (IRP) including Grow For Me & Agro Innova (both KIC related), CowTribe (a long-time Barcamp Tamale partner), and SKT AeroShutter. It was also part of the 2022 cohort for KIC’s Business Booster (our investor readiness program for small & medium scale entreprises).

Sommalife achieved its B Corp Certification in September 2023, which is a great for a social enterprise based in Ghana. It transitioned to the name Vitara in 2024. Vitara enables traceability, climate resilience, and market access for smallholder farmers, particularly in shea and other agricultural value chains. Its co-founders are JohnCarl Dunyo (CEO) and Mawuse Christina Gyisun (COO). Some startups to watch in this space include OneSoil (a Global Champion in earlier WSA cycles), Sabi (Nigeria), Mazao AgClimate (Tanzania), OneSoil (Europe), FarmDrive (Kenya) , etc.

Sanasana — Data-Driven Fleet Optimization for Cities

I first learnt about Sanasana while attending the ClimateFest Africa by Startup Discovery School (SDS) on September 17, 2025 at the British Council in Accra, where some KIC I have trained - 3Farmate Robotics, Farmercy Technologies & Aquamet - also pitched as part of the SDS Africa Venture Studio - Cohort 1. I was impressed by Sanasana’s solution. Their Spark platform helps fleets optimise operations, cut fuel use, and reduce carbon emissions — bringing sustainability into routine business decisions. In this era of climate change and conscience, their carbon credit ecosystem is built around their flagship platform, Spark, which utilizes AI and telematics to turn fuel savings into verifiable environmental assets. Sanasana is founded by Karen Wanyama (Kenyan) — CEO, Suad A. Rahman (Ghanaian & MEST alumna) — Ops & Marketing & Muthoni Muriuki (Kenyan)— CTO.

Sana means a lot or very from the Swahili I started learning from my friends during my time at MIT and my Kiswahili classes at Stanford. Sanasana means “in particular”. I think this lends well to what this startup is “fanyaying” on. I felt they would also be a strong candidate for the WSA and nominated them. Some startups to watch in this space include past WSA winners like Rekosistem, BasiGo (Kenya), and Samsara.

These 2024 winners attended the WSA Global Congress in Hyderabad, India (April 6–9, 2025), where they presented solutions, engaged in high-level discussions, and connected with innovators, investors, and global leaders in tech and sustainable development. They attended alongside a Ghanaian delegation led by Dorothy Gordon (WSA Ghana National Expert), Kafui Anson-Yevu, Kwesi Hayford and Ato Ulzen-Appiah.

The 2026 WSA Global Congress

Co-founders of these 3 startups would be attending the WSA Global Congress set for May 19–23, 2026 in Vienna, Austria. This summit themed: “Scaling Digital Solutions: For People & Planet” brings together winners, mentors, investors, policy makers and global ecosystem builders for workshops, panels, pitching sessions, and networking opportunities. The event is hosted by the City of Vienna as part of ViennaUP, Central Europe’s largest startup and innovation festival, offering even more opportunities to connect and collaborate. This follows the 2025 WSA Global Congress in Hyderabad, India (April 6–9, 2025), which I participated in. It was my first time in India, and it was an eye opener amongst many things like celebrating great Ghanaians, networking, learning, sharing, etc.

This WSA Global Congress is not just a trophy ceremony, it is an opportunity to pitch to potential partners and investors, create more visibility in global ecosystems, build strategic collaborations across regions and sectors, participate in expert workshops, and represent Ghana greatly! Our presence matters because we show that our solutions aren’t just great, innovative, local and scalable, they also solve problems that matter globally. #GhToTheWorld. We continue to prove that we build world-class technology. More vim to all our startups building world-class innovations that are primarily used in our cultural neighbourhood and are able to scale

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