Introduction
CARDANO TECH SUMMIT 2026
Hackathon – Kwang Tech Hub
Dschang, Cameroon
I recall a meeting with the rector of the Polytechnic University of Turin, Prof. Francesco Profumo, who later became the Italian Minister of Higher Education. During our discussion, I pointed out that one of the most critical elements missing from engineering education was ethics and philosophy.
Unfortunately, this observation does not apply only to Italy, nor only to engineering. It extends across disciplines and across countries.
At the time, my insistence on ethics and philosophy stemmed from a growing awareness of a deep disconnect between technological inventions, laboratory research, and the human being for whom these technologies are supposedly created. Human life, nature, and society are rarely placed at the center of innovation. They often appear only after harm has already been designed—and sometimes widely deployed.
This realization led me to question the very essence of technology:
- What is technology?
- What is its purpose?
- Whom does it serve?
- How is it conceived?
- How does it unfold within society?
These questions demand serious reflection.
One only needs to look at widely used digital communication applications such as WhatsApp or Telegram to understand the urgency of local technological creativity. Where are African cultural references in these tools? Their absence is not due to negligence, but rather to a simple truth: technology is the product of the cultural, environmental, historical, economic, and political contexts that give birth to it.
Ignoring these realities places culture, humanity, and nature at constant risk. Every meaningful technological creation must therefore be anchored in lived and perceived local realities.
It is within this spirit that the Hackathon we are participating in takes place. By observing our immediate environment—our neighborhoods, our city, our region, and our country—we aim to identify real community problems and propose viable, grounded solutions.
This document serves as a guide to understanding the contexts from which these problems emerge and the relevance of the solutions we propose.
Dzubang Mermoz