picoCTF-Africa

A competition designed to introduce African students to the world of cybersecurity, held annually each March.

Get ready for picoCTF-Africa 2025

Join Discord to look for a team
Attend a training session or view previous sessions
Explore the picoCTF-Africa registration guide
Learn cybersecurity principles in picoPrimer
Practice and gain more skills in the picoGym

picoCTF-Africa is a free computer security competition for undergraduate and graduate students across the African continent, created by security and privacy experts at Carnegie Mellon University Africa.

This competition is part of picoCTF, the annual computer security competition and learning platform created by CyLab Security and Privacy Institute. Participants of picoCTF-Africa will be ranked on an African-only leaderboard within the annual picoCTF competition.

Over the course of nearly a decade, picoCTF has become the world's largest online hacking competition. The event has also grown to include several geographically-based leaderboards and programming, including Canada, Japan, and Africa.

Explore past picoCTF-Africa winners and partnerships

Award and global recognition criteria

Participants must be between the age of 13-25 years
Students must apply individually and join a team consisting of two to five students
Must be an active student from an accredited high school, college, or undergraduate program
Teams with both female and male participants are highly encouraged
Participants have to be permanent residents and citizens of an African country to be eligible for the award

picoCTF-Africa is open to everyone. Students and teams that do not meet these requirements can still participate, but will not be eligible to win contest prizes. Please see competition rules for details.

There is no fee to participate. Students can sign up to compete through the last day of the competition. There is no limit to the number of teams that can represent a single school, and team members do not have to attend the same school.

Train for picoCTF-Africa View previous training sessions

Session 1 (passcode: u50i6.Rv)
Session 2 (passcode: KH2Y0%6%)
Session 3 (passcode: %uyG0!eS)

Terms and conditions

All team members must meet award criteria for the team to be considered as a winner.
picoCTF-Africa reserves the right to request participants to present any documents that verify the identity and nationality of participants.
picoCTF-Africa reserves the right to request participants to present a notified letter from the school dean or student ID.
All registration will be done on the picoCTF platform
picoCTF-Africa reserves the right to determine qualification for certain award criteria
Any misrepresentation or false information provided by a participant will lead to disqualification of the team.
If the top-performing team is at least 50% female, that team wins both the team award and the Women in Cybersecurity Award.

Overall awards

Individuals from the top three African teams will be awarded prizes. Each member of the top three teams will win a prize package that includes electronics and picoCTF-Africa swag and goodies. Winners will be celebrated at an awards ceremony in May.

First place

College
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $3,000 USD
High school
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $1,800 USD

Second place

College
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $1,800 USD
High school
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $1,000 USD

Third place

College
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $1,000 USD
High school
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $500 USD

Best Women-in-Tech Team

College or high school
Team members will be awarded prize packages that total up to $600 USD

Country-specific awards

Rwanda

Sponsored by the Ministry of ICT & Innovation Rwanda

College

First place: Frw 150,000
Second place: Frw 100,000
Award for Women in Cybersecurity: Frw 50,000

High school

First place: Frw 150,000
Second place: Frw 100,000
Award for Women in Cybersecurity: Frw 50,000

Zimbabwe

Sponsored by the Ministry of Skills Audit and Development

Top high school team
Top college or undergraduate team
Best team with at least 50% women

picoCTF-Africa may give special country-specific recognization to teams from the following countries visited during our 2024-2025 tour. This will include one undergraduate and one high school team.