Last night was magical! Kwenda has been awarded “Malawi’s Most Scalable Solution” at the Inaugural Malawi National ICT Innovations Awards - 2026 by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) at the Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe, Malawi.🇲🇼 The award comes barely few months after Kwenda was awarded Malawi’s 2025 Best Innovation and Technology Solution award by the ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM).🥇

🚀 From 226 Innovators to the Top 20 to winning🏆

The inaugural Malawi National ICT Innovations Awards 2026 brought together 226 innovations from across Malawi, with only 20 shortlisted as finalist for the final pitches.

Kwenda was proud to be among the Top 20 innovators selected, representing Malawi’s growing wave of digital solutions addressing real challenges across multiple sectors.

We would like in a special way congratulate our fellow innovators who made the shortlist and who dared to try-reflecting the strength, growth and potential of Malawi’s technological innovations and the tech ecosystem, in general.

📝 MACRA Workshop Training for Top 20 Innovators

In preparation for the awards, Kwenda participated in workshop training sessions organised by MACRA at NextGen Labs in Lilongwe, alongside the Top 20 innovators.

The sessions provided a platform for innovators to present their solutions, receive feedback, and refine their innovations ahead of the exhibition and awards.

As highlighted by MACRA, the workshops reflected the importance of investing in youth-led innovation, with solutions spanning agritech, health, fintech, and digital services.

The sessions played an important role in strengthening readiness and encouraging collaboration among innovators working to solve real national challenges.

🤝 Engaging Malawi’s Innovation Ecosystem, Government & Stakeholders

During the exhibition at BICC, Kwenda engaged with a wide range of leaders, judges, and key stakeholders who visited our pavilion.

These included policymakers and industry leaders such as the Minister of Trade, Hon. Simon Itaye, Hon. Shadreck Namalomba, Minister of Information, Technology and Digitization, reflecting the growing national focus on digital innovations as a driver of trade, efficiency, and economic growth as per the National blueprint Vision 2063 and the Malawi Digital Economy Strategy.

🌍 Building for Scale

Winning “Malawi’s Most Scalable Solution” reflects Kwenda’s core vision of building an integrated digital travel ecosystem for Malawi and rest of Africa.

By connecting events, accommodation, and transport into one platform, Kwenda is addressing the challenge of fragmented travel services worthy $27Billion in market value, and making it easier and formalized for people to discover, book, and pay for travel related services.

📊 Driving Real Impact

In under two years of operations, Kwenda has grown to be Malawi’s technological force of impact, serving over 500,000 active users, processing over MK1.5 billion in ticket value across the platform, with 1Million + of tickets sold across all its 7 service channels; USSD 495#, WhatsApp Channel, Web, KwendaApp, Airtel Money App, NBS Digital Banking 322#.

This includes on top of it’s strategic partnerships with the likes of Football Association of Malawi (FAM), Lake of Stars International Festival, Standard Bank Kumbali Live, Airtel Malawi, just to mention a few - demonstrating the validity of our innovation and Malawi’s shift towards more accessible and reliable digital ticketing systems in Malawi.🇲🇼

🔮 Looking Ahead

Kwenda remains focused on scaling across in Malawi via both new and incremental innovations and across Southern Africa, continuing to simplify travel through technology and expand access to digital services.

💬 Our Founder and CEO, Lumbani Gondwe, shared:

“This recognition huge for us and same time a strong validation of the problem we are solving and the direction we are taking. Kwenda is building infrastructure that makes access to experiences and travel related services simpler, more transparent, and more connected across Malawi and beyond. We are grateful to the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) for the recognition and for the introduction and well-put together Inaugural Malawi National ICT Innovations Awards. The country has a lot of brilliant innovations with the capacity to address our national challenges and such a platinum will bring those innovations to life”.

🔗 Explore Kwenda

Discover more on our platform: https://kwenda.co

Stay tuned for more 🚀

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For media inquiries, please contact:

Edith Chihera

Head of Marketing and Communications

echihera@kwenda.co

Our Support

📝 Kwenda Wins ‘Malawi’s Most Scalable Solution’ at the Inaugural Malawi National ICT Innovation Awards -2026 🇲🇼🏆