Zain Africa Challenge is open to all universities in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia meeting the following criteria:

1. All public universities
2. All private universities in possession of a Charter or an Act of Parliament
3. All private universities in possession of a Certificate of Provisional Registration or a Provisional License or a Letter of Interim Authority
4. Enrollment of 250 undergraduate bachelors degree students (or more)
5. Third year of intake (or more)

Based on the above criteria, we solicited a list of eligible universities from the Ministries of Education and the IUCEA.

The 16 universities selected by the National Universities Commission (NUC) are inclusive and representative of: regional distribution, institutional academic stature, public and private universities, religiously affiliated and non-sectarian universities. The universities in Nigeria which qualified for the International Championship Festival (ICF) in 2009 were automatically selected. Therefore, for the 2010 season there were 11 new universities selected..

The resulting list of eligible universities is: