timbuktoo is UNDP’s flagship platform to position Africa as a global leader in innovation, aiming to mobilise US$1 billion over 10 years.

Caption: Chioma Ifeanyi-Eze, founder of Data Entry Academy (Left)

LAGOS, Nigeria — July 3, 2026 — Data Entry Academy, the digital skills school built by Nigerian accounting firm Accountinghub, has won first place at Get Ready 4 timbuktoo EdTech, a pan-African accelerator run by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and managed by Pitch Palabre from Dakar, Senegal. 

Founder Chioma Ifeanyi-Eze took the $10,000 top prize at the programme’s awards ceremony on July 1, after a three-minute pitch before a panel of judges and investors, finishing ahead of startups from Egypt and Senegal in second and third place.

The competition drew 1,429 applications from across the continent, of which 1,099 passed eligibility screening. Nineteen independent experts then conducted 2,846 blind evaluations to select a cohort of 50 startups for the 12-week accelerator, delivered in English and French. Every startup in the cohort had a working product, and 64% were already generating revenue. Women founders made up 44 percent of the cohort, exceeding UNDP’s target of 35 to 40%. Twenty startups advanced to the final pitch, and ten emerged as winners. The two Nigerian companies in the top ten — Data Entry Academy in first place and Varsity Scape, founded by Daniel Idiare, in sixth — are alumni of the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship.

Data Entry Academy runs a 30-day online school that teaches the software of the modern workplace: spreadsheets, cloud accounting, invoicing, inventory and payroll tools, more than 40 applications in all. 

Founded by Ifeanyi-Eze, a chartered accountant whose career began at PricewaterhouseCoopers before she led finance functions at companies including Jumia Nigeria, the Academy has trained over 17,000 students across Africa. Participants need no prior accounting, data entry or Excel experience; only basic computer literacy. Training runs through Telegram and Teachable, an accessibility-first design that has drawn learners from job seekers and side hustlers to small business owners and staff being upskilled by their employers. 

The result extends a pattern for the Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellowship, delivered in partnership with Co-creation Hub (CcHUB), which selects around 12 startups per cohort from over 1,000 applications and backs each with $100,000 in equity-free funding and twelve months of advisory support spanning product design, learning sciences, distribution and investment readiness. Data Entry Academy came through the Fellowship’s second cohort in 2024; Varsity Scape through its third cohort. Applications for the Fellowship’s fourth Nigerian cohort were announced in February 2026.

The award caps a 12-week accelerator in which startups received structured support to strengthen business models, improve products, develop market traction, integrate learning sciences and become investment-ready within the timbuktoo pipeline. 

timbuktoo is UNDP’s flagship platform to position Africa as a global leader in innovation, aiming to mobilise US$1 billion over 10 years, support 10,000 startups and generate US$10 billion in value across the continent. Its EdTech Hub, based in Dakar, supports startups, governments and educational institutions to strengthen solutions, catalyse investment and inform policy.