Published: January 9, 2026
Monrovia — A Liberian-built AI venture is quickly gaining global attention for helping governments and public institutions deploy advanced AI systems and maintain sovereign control over their data.
Surna Technologies, a sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure company has been named a semifinalist in Harvard University’s President’s Innovation Challenge, a competition recognizing the world’s most promising student-led ventures.
From the thousands of ventures supported across Harvard’s 13 schools, Surna Technologies has been named a semifinalist in this year’s President’s Innovation Challenge.
Surna is founded on a transformative idea: Africa must control its own full stack architecture. From secure data ownership to the development and deployment of advanced AI systems instead of outsourcing that power to external providers.
Surna founder Hellen S. Momoh, a Harvard Data Science graduate student, says the innovation is larger than just a single project.
“If data is the new oil, Africa must have its own refinery!” Surna technologies is building the infrastructure layer that lets African institutions benefit from their own intelligence.
Surna’s advance to the Harvard Innovation Challenge marks a milestone for Liberia, which now joins a short list of African nations leading sovereign AI development.
Industry observers say the startup is part of a broader push across the continent from fintech to climate intelligence to ensure national systems are built within Africa, by Africans, for African institutions.
With Liberia as its proving ground, Surna has set its sights on expansion across West Africa and ECOWAS markets, offering cloud infrastructure, national observability systems, and cross-sector AI capabilities.
Harvard’s Innovation Labs praised semifinalists as the university’s “most promising and high-impact emerging ventures,” with finalists to be selected in March 2026.
If chosen as one of five finalists in the Open Track, Surna will compete live for a share of over $500,000 in funding.
For Momoh, the message is clear:
“This milestone isn’t just about Surna. It signals that Liberia can innovate at the level of the world’s top schools and compete with leading technology ecosystems. This is the beginning of a new chapter for Africa’s digital future.”
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