Twenty-eight students from eighteen universities around the world presented community-centered solutions during the 2026 U7+ Student Challenge hosted by Ashesi University. Held under the theme “Global Anchor Institutions: Harnessing University Networks for Local Resilience,” the challenge required participants to develop practical solutions. They addressed one of three interconnected challenges: transforming university campuses into hubs for addressing local community challenges, combating disinformation, and making university resources more accessible to local communities.
For Euphasia Atieno, a student from the University of Edinburgh, the most important lesson from the 2026 U7 Student Challenge was about people.
“Many times, it’s easy to theoretically come up with something and call it a solution,” she shared “However, I’ve learned that spending time to immerse yourself in the life of your target audience, apart from your technical know-how and data, is relevant in the design of solutions to a number of problems.”
One of the solutions developed during the challenge was Mama Care, a maternal health initiative. Designed to address delays in accessing maternal healthcare in Ghana, the project combines a physical community health hub at Ashesi University with digital tools that support expectant mothers throughout their pregnancy journey. The initiative would provide services such as free health screenings and pregnancy-related information through a mobile application and USSD platform. This is to help expectant mothers access reliable health guidance regardless of internet connectivity.
Recognizing the need for the strengthening and standardization of the skillset and knowledge of individuals in the informal sector, another group proposed a “rural teaching model” to connect the universities with their local communities.  In this model, existing community spaces, together with educational resources from universities, will be leveraged to retool these individuals in the informal sector within the selected community. The model also offers mentorship to individuals in the informal sector to enhance their knowledge and skills.
Verify All Receipts (VAR) was developed by another team to combat misinformation. VAR is an AI-powered fact-checking and verification platform that operates within existing messaging applications. It enables users to verify information by simply forwarding a message, a screenshot, and many more to the system. The platform then analyzes the content, checks it against available evidence and credible sources, and returns an evidence-based assessment.
