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Microsoft Competition at Ashesi Showcases Student-Led AI Solutions Across Sectors

Team 5’s Accra-Flow, a smart system designed to alleviate traffic congestion and improve urban resilience in Greater Accra, was adjudged the overall best project at the Ashesi Microsoft Case Study Competition. Padi, a personalized multimodal AI tutor for university students, secured Team 2 the Impact Award. This award recognized the team that demonstrated the strongest balance between impact and feasibility. 

Bringing together students from multiple disciplines, the competition required participants to identify pressing real-world problems and develop solutions leveraging Microsoft AI tools. The focus areas spanned youth employment and small business growth, primary healthcare access, agricultural supply chain resilience, education quality and access, and urbanization and infrastructure resilience. 

With many drivers choosing routes without real-time traffic information, and traffic lights treating all vehicles the same regardless of how many people they carry, commuting in Accra often becomes slow and unpredictable. This leads to unnecessary congestion and longer travel times for everyone on the road.
Accra-Flow was proposed to tackle this by giving drivers live traffic updates, allowing traffic lights to prioritize vehicles like minibuses that carry more passengers, and providing commuters with more reliable travel time estimates. It works through smart roadside cameras that analyze traffic while protecting privacy, intelligent traffic lights that learn and coordinate with each other, and simple USSD alerts that communicate this information to commuters. 

For Team 2, the starting point was the growing gap in personalized academic support for university students in Ghana. Their solution, Padi, delivers lessons in multiple formats—visual, audio, video, and text—tailored to individual learning preferences. Following a short onboarding process, the system adapts content and explanations to suit each student, revisiting concepts in different ways until mastery is achieved. In doing so, it moves beyond the limitations of one-size-fits-all teaching models. 

Addressing the disconnect between educational outcomes and labor market needs, Team 1 introduced SkillsBridge Ghana; an AI-powered web platform that identifies users’ skill gaps and provides structured learning pathways. It matches a user’s profile—whether a job seeker or entrepreneur—against a structured database of roles and identifies the exact skills they are lacking. The gaps identified are then translated into personalized, time-bound learning plans to enable users to acquire the required skills for their desired roles. 

Team 4 turned its focus to the challenge of hypertension. Rather than expecting Ghanaians to seek out healthcare on their own, this solution brings detection, tracking, and follow-up into the spaces where people already are. The approach has two components: a primary integrated system that combines community-based blood pressure monitoring with AI-powered tracking and follow-up, and a secondary awareness campaign through localized animation. The core of this solution is an end-to-end system that embeds blood pressure measurement directly into community life. Information from digital blood pressure monitoring devices placed at vantage points within the community. Where digital connectivity is available, readings are synced to the AI platform in near-real time. In locations with limited connectivity, readings are recorded manually and entered into the system later. When a concerning pattern is detected, the medical team at the nearest medical facility is notified, and the individual also receives automated SMS alerts with the requisite details guiding them to the nearest medical facility.  This closes the loop between a one-time screening event and ongoing care, addressing the critical gap where individuals receive a high reading and never act on it. 

To complement the monitoring system will be short animated videos (1–2 minutes each) produced in several local Ghanaian languages for awareness creation on hypertension. Contact points with the public will include  include banking hall screens, buses and trotros during transit, hospital and clinic waiting areas, and churches, mosques, and many more. 

In the agricultural sector, Team 3 tackled inefficiencies in the cassava value chain by developing HarvestConnect. This platform reduces post-harvest losses by ensuring farmers secure confirmed buyers before harvesting. By connecting farmers, market intermediaries, and buyers in real time, the system improves coordination, minimizes waste, and strengthens supply chain efficiency. 

Serving as Mentor, Sihaam Mohammed Sayuti,Adjunct Faculty at Ashesi remarked:
“Innovation is not just about what is possible, but what is responsible and relevant. The team demonstrated a strong awareness of this, grounding their ideas in context while still pushing the boundaries of what technology can do.” 

 Dzifa Biga from Microsoft added:
“AI is transforming how we approach problem-solving, and this competition has shown that when students are equipped with the right tools, they can design impactful, innovative solutions. Their level of ingenuity and depth of thinking has been truly impressive. At Microsoft, we are proud to support initiatives like this that empower the next generation of tech-enabled leaders to achieve more.” 

Meet team members 

Team 1
Dennis Ababio M’27
Sombang Patience Nyonglema M’27 

Nana Akua Amponsah’27 

Edward Mensah’26 

Team 2 

Mahdi Jamaldeen M’27 

Thomas Kojo Quarshie ‘27 

Eldad Opare’27 

Agatha Suzie Youyou’27 

Team 3
Joseph Ajegetina Ajongba M’27 

Kojo Adade-Amankwah M’27 

Chika Amanna’26 

Andrew Quarcoo’27 

Team 4 

Dr. Ernest Mensah M’27 

Nana Sam Yeboah ‘27 

Ama Ansogmaa Aseda Annor’26 

Inares Tsangue’27 

Team 5 

Kwame Adaboh Twum M’27 

Cajetan Songwae M’27
Shaun Esua-Mensah’27 

Pout Chop Madeng’27  

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