Omarchy Ethiopia draws 177 to Addis Ababa for the country’s first meetup, with a theme competition

Ethiopia now has its own Omarchy meetup. “Omarchy ETHIOPIA” took place on Saturday, October 17, 2026, from 2 PM to 6 PM in Addis Ababa, and the Luma event page lists 177 people as having gone. The free event was marked sold out, with a waitlist still active. The page describes it as “the first of it’s kind meetup for Omarchy in Ethiopia”, and the dedicated site omarchy.org.et calls it a “First of its kind gathering for the Omarchy community in Ethiopia.”

The meetup was organized by Nebiyu Elias (@nebex_elias), who announced it on X on September 1, 2026: “I’ll be organizing Omarchy meetup in Ethiopia. In could be online or in person (not sure yet). All help will be appreciated.” Six weeks later, it was very much in person: an office on the 8th floor of the Elsadol Building on Mike Leyland Road, with Mariamawit Ewnetu, Amanuel, Abemelek and Tsion Tesfaye listed as co-hosts on Luma. The organizers also promised to “try to have online live stream version for folks who can’t join”, and asked attendees to bring their laptops and show what they had been doing with their setups.

According to the meetup site, three talks were on the program: “Nix for Omarchers” by Fraol Lemecha, software developer at EVpin; “Vicinae: High-Performance Desktop Launcher, Raycast Compatibility & Beyond” by Dagim Gizachew Astatkie, backend engineer at klik.et; and “Beyond the rice: Building an Agentic Desktop on fedora 44 with omarchy principles” by software developer Eyuel Getachew.

The twist that sets this meetup apart is a local theme competition. On October 5, 2026, Eyasu (@Eyasu_kga) posted on X that “The Omarchy Ethiopia Theme Competition is open!”, inviting people to “Create a theme inspired by Ethiopia and tech” and to “Start with a wallpaper connected to Ethiopia architecture, landscapes, colors, Addis Ababa, or anything that inspires you.” The leaderboard page now lists nine community-built themes competing for a 10,000 ETB prize pool, with the final score split “50% expert judges · 50% community votes”. Voting is done with a GitHub reaction on each theme’s issue.

The entries include Ethiopia by Eyasu Kibru, Golden Ethiopia by samuel, Piassa Nostalgia by Yeabsira, Ethiopia Retro by Abemelek, Red Sun by Mahder Kassaw, Tibeb (ጥበብ) by Daniel Gidey, Ethio Dusk by Eyuel Getachew, Pulse by Hundaol and NooXShell by NooX. At the time of writing, the leaderboard shows Ethiopia as “Currently winning” with a final score of 83 out of 100, tied with Golden Ethiopia, but several entries have no judge score yet and no official winner has been announced.

The event had real backing too. The meetup site lists Tefer as Official Event Partner, SIMA and Tauon Labs as Lead Sponsors, and Senay Gebre as Supporter. On September 29, 2026, Nebiyu wrote on X that “Tauon Labs is supporting Omarchy Ethiopia Meetup 2026 as a Lead Sponsor to help grow the local tech community and connect with talented builders.”

On the day, Amanuel Teferi posted a photo from the room with “Happening right now #omarchy #Ethiopia”. The next morning, Chapi Menge summed it up: “Was so awesome to be part of @omarchy Ethiopia meetup. Thank you @nebex_elias for organising it.”

If you missed it, Nebiyu Elias has uploaded three recordings titled “Omarchy Ethiopia 2026 Meetup” to his YouTube channel: part one, part two and part three. After Taipei, Brisbane and Shenzhen, Addis Ababa is another sign that Omarchy meetups are becoming a worldwide thing.

Source: https://luma.com/zh5jv195