Meta has concluded the AMET AI Summit, a two-day event in Dubai bringing together government leaders, alongside startups, academics, industry experts, and Meta partners from across Africa, the Middle East, and Türkiye. The summit showcased the region’s growing AI innovation ecosystem and culminated in the announcement of the $100,000 grand prize winner of the AMET AI Accelerator Pitch Competition, which celebrates startups creating impactful, locally relevant AI solutions addressing key challenges in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, public services, and safety.
Egypt’s finalist, Rology, was awarded the grand prize of $100,000 for their innovative solution, an AI-powered teleradiology platform automating X-ray report generation through a dynamic system that mimics clinical reasoning. The winning team will also have ongoing access to Meta’s partner engineering resources, and as well as continued mentorship and technical support.
“At Meta, we believe the next wave of global innovation will come from local ecosystems,” said Kojo Boakye, Vice President of Public Policy for Africa, the Middle East, and Turkiye (AMET) at Meta. “Through regional initiatives like the AMET AI Accelerator, our Llama family of models, and AI-driven products and platforms, we’re empowering developers, startups, and researchers to create localised AI-powered solutions with wider social and economic impact at scale. We’re proud to see startups from across AMET use and build with our technologies to respond to local needs with regional and global potential.”
The AMET AI Accelerator Program invited startups from eight countries including: Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, KSA, Türkiye, and the UAE. Each country hosted a national AI accelerator over a 6–8 week incubation period, offering participants access to Meta’s partner engineering teams, industry mentorship, and technical support. National demo days were held across the region, with the top startup from each country advancing to the final pitch at the AMET AI Summit today in Dubai. Judging criteria included innovation, problem-solution fit, market potential, technical execution, team strength, and presentation quality.
Other finalists included:
● UAE – EveryHuman, uses the Llama model and generative AI to power its scent creation platform, which produces personalized perfumes based on user input and preferences.
● KSA – Juleb, which provides integrated cloud systems to serve the health sector and improve connectivity across pharmacies.
● Nigeria – MARMAR, an AI-native EMR and mobile platform powered by Llama that helps eliminate medication errors and empower patients.
● Senegal – Kajou, which delivers AI-enhanced educational content and assistants via MicroSD cards for offline communities.
● South Africa – eFama, an agri-tech app connecting farmers directly with buyers.
● Türkiye – F-Ray Financial Technologies, an advanced risk assessment platform that analyzes both financial and non-financial data.
● Kenya – DPE, public health platform using the Llama model to help health teams design and deliver behaviourally informed health messages via SMS and WhatsApp in local languages.
The AI Summit also featured a series of high-level discussions exploring the intersection of innovation and governance as well as the role of collaborative policy frameworks in accelerating responsible AI adoption across the AMET region. The keynote session, “Bridging Product Innovation and Policy to Accelerate AI Adoption,” was delivered by Andy O’Connell, Vice President of Product Policy & Strategy, Meta.
The initiative reinforces Meta’s commitment to building the regional AI ecosystem, empowering startups to address local needs using world-class tools, and fostering collaboration between public and private sectors to shape responsible AI innovation.
