This edition is for up-and-coming Zindians—only those without a previous gold medal are prize-eligible. Peek at your medal status here, and polish your profile while you’re at it.

Gold already? Jump in to help mentor future winners in the Chats.

Across Ghana’s Pra River Basin, local farmers have long relied on generations of knowledge- using the moon, wind patterns, bird and plant behavior, and even the stars - to anticipate rainfall. With limited access to modern meteorological tools and the inaccuracy of these modern methods in rural Ghana, indigenous knowledge has remained a vital component of agricultural planning and rural resilience.

Despite its importance, this form of forecasting has rarely been digitized, quantified, or evaluated systematically. Thanks to an innovative data collection initiative using the SIW Mobile App, for the first time we have structured data that captures forecasts based on indigenous knowledge alongside actual rain measurements. This opens a new frontier: merging traditional knowledge with AI modelling to build more inclusive and locally-grounded weather prediction models.

Your task is to build a classification model that predicts the type of rainfall—heavy, moderate, or small—expected in the next 12 to 24 hours, based solely on indigenous ecological indicators submitted by trained farmers.

The training dataset contains farmers' forecast submissions, the indicators they used (like sun, cloud, wind, moon), and the actual measured rainfall (via rain gauges). The test dataset will require you to make predictions on unseen examples using similar indicator data.

This challenge encourages you to explore the scientific potential of Indigenous Ecological Indicators (IEIs), while contributing to an effort that empowers local communities and enriches global meteorological understanding.

This challenge supports the development of accurate, hyper-local weather predictions where traditional models often fail and most importantly validates indigenous methods that helps bridge scientific and cultural knowledge systems, giving agency back to rural communities.

Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab (RAIL)

The Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab (RAIL) is hosted at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. RAIL seeks to be the first step in establishing a sustainable approach to nurturing local talent to engage in multidisciplinary, responsible AI for development research and innovation with a focus on women that respond to capacity requirements of the public and private sectors. More specifically, the lab seeks to:

• deepen our understanding of how to develop and apply responsible AI tools for the advancement of computer, biomedical, agricultural, and ecological sciences;
• strengthen the national and international collaboration of public universities with the private sector, and
• strengthen capacities in the responsible utilization of AI in support of the most vulnerable communities in Ghana, Senegal, and the sub-region.

RAIL is currently a part of the 10-year AI4D Africa partnership between IDRC and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) to support policy, innovations, and expanded leadership that will spur responsible AI development in Africa. The mission of the program is to improve the quality of life for all in Africa and beyond by partnering with Africa’s science and policy communities to leverage AI through high-quality research, responsible innovation, and strengthening talent. The Lab is also supported by GIZ through its FAIR Forward initiative.

French Embassy in Ghana

The French Embassy in Ghana has been a strategic partner in advancing AI innovation through its funding of the Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Development (AI4SD) project at KNUST’s Responsible AI Lab (RAIL). This collaboration aligns with France’s commitment to digital transformation in Africa. The Embassy facilitated knowledge exchange through Franco-Ghanaian research partnerships, supported RAIL’s 2024 hackathons on inn technologies, and enabled the lab’s integration into the global AI for Development network.

The French Embassy’s funding strengthened RAIL’s capacity to develop ethical AI solutions for agriculture and healthcare, directly contributing to SDGs in Ghana.

The evaluation metric for this challenge is F1 Score.

For every row in the dataset, submission files should contain 2 columns: ID and Target.

ID                       Target

ID_ekOZy_12hr_rain_type  NORAIN

ID_3RVHW_12hr_rain_type  NORAIN

As part of RAIL's commitment to Responsible AI, all submitted solutions must include explainability components. Participants are required to integrate explainability techniques such as Grad-CAM, LIME, or SHAP. These techniques should provide clear, visual explanations of how the models make their predictions, ensuring transparency and fostering trust in the AI solutions.

File models must be submitted in ONNX or TFlite formats.

Please note that this is a requirement for winning prize money in this challenge.

Runners up and all Zindians are encouraged to share their solutions at the close of the challenge so we can all learn and improve.

1st place: $ 1 250 USD

2nd place: $750 USD

3rd place: $500 USD

In addition to financial prizes, the creators of the winning models will be invited to collaborate with RAIL to publish the results in a scientific journal, as well as work together on paths towards implementing the solutions developed.

NB: This challenge is only open to citizens of African countries. Winners will be expected to demonstrate proof of citizenship.

NB: This challenge is only open to Zindians who have not previously won a gold medal in a Zindi challenge. Submissions from gold-medal winners will be disregarded.

*The prizes are shown as estimated dollar equivalent amounts, given an exchange rate of USD1 = GHS10.35. The prizes will be awarded in Ghanaian cedis, in the following amounts, regardless of exchange rate:

1st place: 13 000 GHS

2nd place: 7 800 GHS

3rd place: 5 200 GHS

There are 5 000 Zindi points available. You can read more about Zindi points here.

The richness of this dataset is not just in its variables, but in the lived experiences behind them. During the research process, several unique and compelling stories emerged:

• The Star-Gazer Farmer: One participant from the Central Region relies exclusively on constellations and star movements to forecast rain. He is known locally for his consistent accuracy and does not refer to trees, wind, or clouds—just the night sky.
• The Tree Whisperer: Another farmer bases his predictions on the behavior of specific trees—whether leaves curl or point downwards—and even the flowering patterns of native species before the rainy season begins.
• The Animal Observer: One woman shared that she observes the migration and chirping behavior of certain birds, which she claims signal an imminent storm better than any other method.
• The Wind Watcher: A farmer in the Ashanti region tracks the direction and intensity of early morning winds, combining this with cloud cover at dawn to determine both the likelihood and strength of incoming rainfall.

These stories reveal a sophisticated system of observation deeply attuned to the natural environment. Your model has the potential to capture and reflect these human-centered insights at scale.

🚀 What to know to get started with Zindi Challenges

How to get started on Zindi

How to create a team on Zindi

How to run notebooks in Colab

How to update your profile

• Languages and tools: You may only use open-source languages and tools in building models for this challenge.
• Who can compete: This edition is for up-and-coming African Zindians—only those without a previous gold medal are prize-eligible. Peek at your medal status here, and polish your profile while you’re at it. Winners will be expected to demonstrate proof of citizenship.
• Submission Limits: 2 submissions per day, 30 submissions overall.
• Team size: Max team size of 4
• Public-Private Split: Zindi maintains a public leaderboard and a private leaderboard for each challenge. The Public Leaderboard includes approximately 30% of the test dataset. The private leaderboard will be revealed at the close of the challenge and contains the remaining 70% of the test set.
• Data Sharing: CC-BY SA 4.0 license
• Code Review: Top 10 on the private leaderboard will receive an email requesting their code at the close of the challenge. You will have 48 hours to submit your code.
• Code sharing: Multiple accounts, or sharing of code and information across accounts not in teams, is not allowed and will lead to disqualification.
• Solutions of value: Solutions handed over to clients must be of value to the client, regardless of leaderboard ranking.

ENTRY INTO THIS CHALLENGE CONSTITUTES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE OFFICIAL CHALLENGE RULES.

Full Challenge Rules

This challenge is only open to citizens of African countries. Winners will be expected to demonstrate proof of citizenship.

This edition is for up-and-coming African Zindians—only those without a previous gold medal are prize-eligible. Peek at your medal status here, and polish your profile while you’re at it.

Teams and collaboration

You may participate in challenges as an individual or in a team of up to four people. When creating a team, the team must have a total submission count less than or equal to the maximum allowable submissions as of the formation date. A team will be allowed the maximum number of submissions for the challenge, minus the total number of submissions among team members at team formation. Prizes are transferred only to the individual players or to the team leader.

Multiple accounts per user are not permitted, and neither is collaboration or membership across multiple teams. Individuals and their submissions originating from multiple accounts will be immediately disqualified from the platform.

Code must not be shared privately outside of a team. Any code that is shared, must be made available to all challenge participants through the platform. (i.e. on the discussion boards).

The Zindi data scientist who sets up a team is the default Team Leader but they can transfer leadership to another data scientist on the team. The Team Leader can invite other data scientists to their team. Invited data scientists can accept or reject invitations. Until a second data scientist accepts an invitation to join a team, the data scientist who initiated a team remains an individual on the leaderboard. No additional members may be added to teams within the final 5 days of the challenge or last hour of a hackathon.

The team leader can initiate a merge with another team. Only the team leader of the second team can accept the invite. The default team leader is the leader from the team who initiated the invite. Teams can only merge if the total number of members is less than or equal to the maximum team size of the challenge.

A team can be disbanded if it has not yet made a submission. Once a submission is made individual members cannot leave the team.

All members in the team receive points associated with their ranking in the challenge and there is no split or division of the points between team members.

Datasets, packages and general principles

The solution must use publicly-available, open-source packages only.

You may use only the datasets provided for this challenge.

You may use pretrained models as long as they are openly available to everyone.

Automated machine learning tools such as automl are not permitted.

If the error metric requires probabilities to be submitted, do not set thresholds (or round your probabilities) to improve your place on the leaderboard. In order to ensure that the client receives the best solution Zindi will need the raw probabilities. This will allow the clients to set thresholds to their own needs.

You are allowed to access, use and share challenge data for any commercial, non-commercial, research or education purposes, under a CC-BY SA 4.0 license.

You must notify Zindi immediately upon learning of any unauthorised transmission of or unauthorised access to the challenge data, and work with Zindi to rectify any unauthorised transmission or access.

Your solution must not infringe the rights of any third party and you must be legally entitled to assign ownership of all rights of copyright in and to the winning solution code to Zindi.

Submissions and winning

You may make a maximum of 2 submissions per day.

You may make a maximum of 30 submissions for this challenge.

Before the end of the challenge you need to choose 2 submissions to be judged on for the private leaderboard. If you do not make a selection your 2 best public leaderboard submissions will be used to score on the private leaderboard.

During the challenge, your best public score will be displayed regardless of the submissions you have selected. When the challenge closes your best private score out of the 2 selected submissions will be displayed.

Zindi maintains a public leaderboard and a private leaderboard for each challenge. The Public Leaderboard includes approximately 20% of the test dataset. While the challenge is open, the Public Leaderboard will rank the submitted solutions by the accuracy score they achieve. Upon close of the challenge, the Private Leaderboard, which covers the other 80% of the test dataset, will be made public and will constitute the final ranking for the challenge.

Note that to count, your submission must first pass processing. If your submission fails during the processing step, it will not be counted and not receive a score; nor will it count against your daily submission limit. If you encounter problems with your submission file, your best course of action is to ask for advice on the challenge page.

If you are in the top 10 at the time the leaderboard closes, we will email you to request your code. On receipt of email, you will have 48 hours to respond and submit your code following the Reproducibility of submitted code guidelines detailed below. Failure to respond will result in disqualification.

If your solution places 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the final leaderboard, you will be required to submit your winning solution code to us for verification, and you thereby agree to assign all worldwide rights of copyright in and to such winning solution to Zindi.

If two solutions earn identical scores on the leaderboard, the tiebreaker will be the date and time in which the submission was made (the earlier solution will win).

The winners will be paid via bank transfer, PayPal if payment is less than or equivalent to $100, or other international money transfer platform. International transfer fees will be deducted from the total prize amount, unless the prize money is under $500, in which case the international transfer fees will be covered by Zindi. In all cases, the winners are responsible for any other fees applied by their own bank or other institution for receiving the prize money. All taxes imposed on prizes are the sole responsibility of the winners. The top winners or team leaders will be required to present Zindi with proof of identification, proof of residence and a letter from your bank confirming your banking details. Winners will be paid in USD or the currency of the challenge. If your account cannot receive US Dollars or the currency of the challenge then your bank will need to provide proof of this and Zindi will try to accommodate this.

Please note that due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, we are not currently able to make prize payments to winners located in Russia. We apologise for any inconvenience that may cause, and will handle any issues that arise on a case-by-case basis.

Payment will be made after code review and sealing the leaderboard.

You acknowledge and agree that Zindi may, without any obligation to do so, remove or disqualify an individual, team, or account if Zindi believes that such individual, team, or account is in violation of these rules. Entry into this challenge constitutes your acceptance of these official challenge rules.

Zindi is committed to providing solutions of value to our clients and partners. To this end, we reserve the right to disqualify your submission on the grounds of usability or value. This includes but is not limited to the use of data leaks or any other practices that we deem to compromise the inherent value of your solution.

Zindi also reserves the right to disqualify you and/or your submissions from any challenge if we believe that you violated the rules or violated the spirit of the challenge or the platform in any other way. The disqualifications are irrespective of your position on the leaderboard and completely at the discretion of Zindi.

Please refer to the FAQs and Terms of Use for additional rules that may apply to this challenge. We reserve the right to update these rules at any time.

Reproducibility of submitted code

If your submitted code does not reproduce your score on the leaderboard, we reserve the right to adjust your rank to the score generated by the code you submitted.

If your code does not run you will be dropped from the top 10. Please make sure your code runs before submitting your solution.

Always set the seed. Rerunning your model should always place you at the same position on the leaderboard. When running your solution, if randomness shifts you down the leaderboard we reserve the right to adjust your rank to the closest score that your submission reproduces.

Custom packages in your submission will not be accepted.

All data manipulation must be done in code, manual manipulation via manual labelling or Excel will lead to disqualification.

You may only use tools available to everyone i.e. no paid services or free trials that require a credit card.

Read this article on how to prepare your documentation and this article on how to ensure a successful code review.

Consequences of breaking any rules of the challenge or submission guidelines:

• First offence: No prizes for 6 months and 2000 points will be removed from your profile (probation period). If you are caught cheating, all individuals involved in cheating will be disqualified from the challenge(s) you were caught in and you will be disqualified from winning any challenges for the next six months and 2000 points will be removed from your profile. If you have less than 2000 points to your profile your points will be set to 0.
• Second offence: Banned from the platform. If you are caught for a second time your Zindi account will be disabled and you will be disqualified from winning any challenges or Zindi points using any other account.

Teams with individuals who are caught cheating will not be eligible to win prizes or points in the challenge in which the cheating occurred, regardless of the individuals’ knowledge of or participation in the offence.

Teams with individuals who have previously committed an offence will not be eligible for any prizes for any challenges during the 6-month probation period.

Monitoring of submissions

• We will review the top 10 solutions of every challenge when the challenge ends.
• We reserve the right to request code from any user at any time during a challenge. You will have 24 hours to submit your code following the rules for code review (see above). Zindi reserves the right not to explain our reasons for requesting code. If you do not submit your code within 24 hours you will be disqualified from winning any challenges or Zindi points for the next six months. If you fall under suspicion again and your code is requested and you fail to submit your code within 24 hours, your Zindi account will be disabled and you will be disqualified from winning any challenges or Zindi points with any other account.