The popular Zain Africa Challenge has made a come back to screens across the continent of Africa. The first ever televised international academic competition among students at African Universities from the leading universities in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia competed in the preliminary national tournaments to qualify to represent their countries and win a share in the US$ 1 million worth of prizes.

The current season is shot at Uganda’s Imperial Royale Hotel.

Thirty two teams from the 8 African countries advanced to the International Championship Festival, held in Uganda. They then entered playoff games where there was tough competition to determine the 16 that would take part in the final rounds of the competition which will be aired on terrestrial stations in the eight competing countries and also, for the first time ever, simultaneously across the whole of Africa on the DSTV satellite platform on Africa Magic and Africa Magic Plus to over 700 million people.

Season 3 of the Zain Africa Challenge, which was held last year, saw first time participants The University of Ibadan in Nigeria emerge victorious in the heated ‘battle of brains’.

For its efforts, University of Ibadan was awarded a US$ 50,000 grant from Zain, while each team member received US$ 5,000. In second place was Kenyatta University that won a grant of S$ 35,000, while each team member went home with $3,000. All the other schools that participated in the tournament received grants ranging from $ 5,000 to $ 35,000.

The teams that participated in ZAC season four qualified by finishing among the top teams in the qualifying tournaments which took place in November 2009 in each country.

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