Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017 by Jamie Potter
Anjali Appadurai spoke eloquently and unapologetically at the United Nations Conference in South Africa, in 2011, on Climate Change. Advocates such as Anjali have helped pave the way to the break through agreements made on this issue, such as the Paris Agreement. In her speech, Anjali urges UN members to listen to the science that […]
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Tuesday, July 7th, 2015 by Emily Dallas
For Mubarak Muyika, being an entrepreneur seemed natural. The young Kenyan first started taking business classes in high school. Orphaned at a young age, he lived in Bungoma County with adoptive parents, who owned a publishing and distribution company called Acrodile Publishers. While working for the company, Mubarak noticed it lacked a powerful website through […]
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Tuesday, June 16th, 2015 by Mihaela Bogdan
Sam Kodo is a 23-year-old young entrepreneur and changemaker from Lomé, Togo. He currently runs a technology company, LC-COM (Low cost-Computer)/ Infinite Loop, which produces low-cost personal computers for students. His biggest dream is to become the next Steve Jobs and create a new kind of Silicon Valley in Africa. The idea to create his company […]
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Monday, June 1st, 2015 by Emily Dallas
Jennifer Kamara grew up in Sierra Leone knowing the consequences of conflict. Throughout the early years of her life, the now 24-year-old Jennifer experienced the decade-long conflict that ravaged her country and tore apart its infrastructure and institutions. After the conflict ended, much rebuilding was necessary to re-establish the infrastructure and economy. Because of the […]
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Tuesday, May 12th, 2015 by Emily Dallas
Isaac Oboth of Uganda was no stranger to misfortune when he became a young entrepreneur in producing videos. Orphaned by the age of seven, Isaac depended on his brother to be his sole provider until he lost his job when Isaac was just 16. Faced with this reality, Isaac, who is now 26, started selling a Ugandan […]
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Thursday, April 23rd, 2015 by Raluca Besliu
In some countries around the world, such as Egypt, Kenya, and Romania, the education system is examination-oriented, meaning that test scores, rather than learning, become the ultimate goal of education. According to a report of the International Journal for Innovation Education and Research, this ultimately distorts students’ motivation and learning, by overstressing the importance of […]
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Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 by Raluca Besliu
In 2010, a severe drought devasted the Eastern part of Kenya, Ethiopia and some parts of of Somalia. It created one of the most severe food security emergencies that humanity had ever seen. In turn, the Western part of Kenya saw a bumper harvest of maize. Some crops rotted in the field, due to an […]
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Saturday, January 17th, 2015 by Raluca Besliu
COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) is a Ugandan-based non-profit started by three refugee youth in secondary school to address the educational problems and other challenges faced by Congolese refugees living in the Kyangwali refugee camp. The nonprofit, launched in 2005, now has over 10,000 members and volunteers from over 40 African countries […]
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Saturday, November 22nd, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
In Uganda, children with special needs are systematically prevented from succeeding academically and fulfilling their potential. There are an estimated 184,000 children in the country, who have some type of disability making it difficult for them to learn. These students often drop out of school due to poor performance, as they face constant physical abuse […]
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Sunday, September 7th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Francis Ssuuna is a young social entrepreneur and a member of the Butterfly Project in Kampala, Uganda, training social entrepreneurship to young Ugandans from remote rural villages and disadvantaged urban slum districts, since 2009.Originally from a small Ugandan village, Lyantonde, Francis now lives in the Acholi Quarter, an underprivileged part of Kampala, where most people survive by selling stone quarried […]
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Tuesday, August 12th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Samuel Lubangakene is an 18-year-old Ugandan Ashoka Youth Venturer, who has developed a creative computer game project, called The Children Mind Development Project (CMDP). The initiative provides multiple brain training games, such as Sudoku, Space Chem and Braid, as well as computer training, including in game-making software, as an alternative to violent video games for […]
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Sunday, June 15th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Sara Policastro is a freshman at George Washington University, pursuing a degree in Human Services and English. She is also one of the founders of the Student Center for African Research and Resolutions (SCARR). Sara is currently the Director of Operations of this student-led and run think tank that creates innovative solutions for solving some […]
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Sunday, April 13th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
When one of his close friends lost his eyesight in an accident at the age of 15, Khaled Shady from Egypt, then a teenager, became determined to help. At the age of 20, Khaled, alongside three other computer engineer graduates at the Menoufia University, created a wearable belt with a Bluetooth-connected headset for the blind […]
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Sunday, April 6th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Whenever going to the market place in her native Nigeria, 22-year-old Adamma Umeofia couldn’t help but observe the inconsistent, disorganized and aesthetically displeasing way in which butchers conducted their work. They often had a small box for cutting the meat and a separate place to display it and bag it for their customers. She gradually […]
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Friday, March 14th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Mohamed Zaazoue, a 26-year-old Egyptian doctor, is creating a cultural shift in attitudes toward health and health care through his organization, Healthy Egyptians, which conducts health education campaigns to prevent diseases like pneumonia, the lead disease killing children under 5. According to UNICEF, around 40,000 children in Egypt die of pneumonia each year. Ironically, both […]
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Friday, March 7th, 2014 by Leih Boyden
Recognized by Forbes as one of 2013 best young entrepreneurs on its list of 30 under, Cosmas Ochieng is an international leader in clean energy innovation. The 26-year-old Kenyan native is founder of Eco Fuels Kenya, an East African company which produces organic fertilizers and green biofuels from renewable indigenous sources. Since the 2000s, many […]
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Thursday, February 13th, 2014 by Raluca Besliu
Arthur Zang, a 26-year-old Cameroonian, is the inventor of the Cardiopad, the first fully touchscreen medical tablet made in Cameroon and in Africa that could save millions of lives around the continent and beyond. The Cardiopad is especially crucial in countries like his own, which only has 30 heart surgeons for a population of around […]
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Tuesday, December 24th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
How young is too young to be a Member of Parliament (MP)? In 2012, at the tender age of 19, Proscovia Oromait from Uganda became Africa’s youngest MP and the second youngest legislator in the world. Younger than her is only Swedish MP Anton Abele, elected in the Swedish Parliament in 2010 at the age […]
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Friday, December 6th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Aya Chebbi is a 26-year-old Tunisian blogger and activist, whose blog, Proudly Tunisian, translates her passion to serve, inspire and strive for human rights, peace and social justice. She was recently declared one of Africa’s 28 most promising women leaders by the Moremi Initiative’s Leadership Development (MILEAD). Aya started blogging during Tunisia 2011 Revolution, when […]
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Monday, November 25th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Best Aiyorworth, a 21-year-old woman from Uganda, has won the 2013 Anzisha Grant Prize, worth $25,000 for the initiative she is leading: Girls’ Power Micro Lending Organization (GIPOMO). Through her business, Best aims to support girls in the Nebbi District of Northern Uganda by helping their mothers, through loans offered to start or improve their […]
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Monday, August 12th, 2013 by Charlie Butts
After years of uncertainty, Chaza Banda’s lifelong dream to go to college is finally materializing. Chaza’s father, an international student from Zambia sent for her in 2005. Just nine months later he died, long before he could complete the process that would make the Banda’s permanent residents of the states. “Since that process was never […]
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Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Brothers John and Mark Lewandowski may soon launch a global health revolution, by inventing a portable, cheap, fast and easy to use device for early malaria diagnosis. Their invention may not only prevent the death of millions who have already contracted the disease, but also lead to a drastic reduction of incidences of malaria. Malaria […]
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Friday, May 24th, 2013 by Charlie Butts
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Thursday, May 16th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
At the beginning of high school, Joel Mwale, currently 20-year-old, caught dysentery from drinking contaminated water provided by his municipal council during Kenya’s annual dry season. As he was slowly recovering from the illness, he started worrying that this disease would “keep on happening, year in, year out, what if next year the same problem […]
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Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Dalumuzi Mhlanga is a young Zimbabwean man empowering, mobilizing and inspiring the youth in his country “to work together beyond socioeconomic barriers so that they can lead community development efforts.” Dalumuzi is a student of Politics, Psychology and Sociology at Harvard University, who is currently on an exchange program at the University of Oxford, UK, as […]
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Saturday, May 11th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
In 2008, the Ugandan government imposed a ban on the use of polythene plastic bags. Sixteen year-old Andrew Mupuya perceived this as a great market opportunity to start a business of environmentally friendly paper bags. He named his company Youth Entrepreneurial Link Investment (YELI). At that time, his parents had become unemployed and the young […]
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Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 by Charlie Butts
Few students could imagine speaking at a United Nations Conference on Climate Change with thousands of delegates from all over the world, but that is exactly what Anjali Appadurai, a student from a small college in Maine, did. And her speech bluntly called out the failures of the adult delegates to agree on meaningful solutions […]
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Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
In 2007, Ludwick Marishane, a South African high-school student, was sunbathing with friends on a cold winter’s day. Before going to take a bath, one of them exclaimed: “Why doesn’t someone invent something you can just put on your skin and avoid the need to bathe?” The proposition immediately got Marishane thinking. He would buy […]
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Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
At the age of 14, William Kamkwamba, from a small Malawian village,built an electricity-producing windmill using only PVC pipe, a tractor fan, an old bicycle frame, and tree branches. The windmill powered the four lights and two radios in his home. He achieved this in a country, where only 2 percent of the population has […]
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Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
In 2009, then 14-year-old Laetitia Mukungu started in her grandparents’ village the Women’s Rabbit Association (WRA), a cooperative organization that farms rabbits to help local women led decent lives and pay for their children’s educational needs. The rabbits are sold to Kenyan restaurants for meat. The teenager’s decision to start the business was directly linked with […]
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Saturday, April 13th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Diana Kerubo Mong’are felt compelled to take action after realizing, while playing with her younger brother, that the garbage piles in her community in Kenya were constantly increasing. She wanted more than to simply remove the trash from her neighbourhood. She decided to create a sustainable system to maintain her community clean and improve the environment. […]
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Friday, April 12th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Yaw Duffour Awuah, a 21-year-old Ghanaian, is the creator of Student Aid Plus, a financial services company providing financial literacy education as well as a savings and loan program helping students to cover various school-related expenses. At the age of 16, while he was in a boarding school, Yaw realized that many of his classmates […]
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Friday, April 12th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Nadege Iradukunda, an 18 year-old Rwandan, is helping schools in her country to significantly reduce their operation cost by providing them bio-digester plants that use natural biological process to transform food waste in energy. In 2010, Nadege felt compelled to take initiative, when she started noticing a growing problem in her community and country. She recalls: […]
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Thursday, April 11th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Last year, then 14-year-old Maud Chifamba made history, as she became the youngest university student in Zimbabwe as well as in the entire southern Africa. She is currently studying to obtain a Bachelor of Accountancy Honors Degree at the University of Zimbabwe, the country’s oldest and most prestigious educational institution. She has obtained a four-year […]
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Wednesday, April 10th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Sizwe Nzima, a young South African entrepreneur from Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, has started Iyeza Express, an innovative business that is helping solve overcrowding at public health facilities and the ever increasing number of patients at clinics and hospitals queuing to collect their medication, while also improving the lives of people who rely on […]
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Wednesday, April 10th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Born in Ekiti, Nigeria and raised by foster parents in the town of Lowestoft England, Ola Orekumrin is the founder of Flying Doctors of Nigeria, West Africa’s first air balance service. It is a social enterprise ensuring urgent air ambulances to leading health institutions, insurance companies and private individuals throughout West Africa. Talking about her organization, the young […]
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Wednesday, April 10th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
Rosebell Kagumire is a Ugandan multimedia journalist working on peace and conflict issues in the Eastern Africa region. She is the coordinator for Africans At 4 Africa, a network of citizens and activists whose main objectives are to create an Africa where Africans drive the solutions to the continent’s problems and to determine African citizens […]
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Tuesday, April 9th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
At the age of 23, Abdu Sekalala, a young Ugandan student at the School of Computing and Information Technology, Makerere University, already boasts a portfolio of nine internationally-rated mobile phone applications, which have earned him a fortune and made him a billionaire in his country. In 2011, Abdu had the opportunity to be trained by Nokia […]
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Monday, April 8th, 2013 by Raluca Besliu
In 2010, Yasmine El-Mehairy was looking online for pregnancy advice for her sister-in-law. She soon encountered conflicting opinions and found not expert input that could clarify the contradictions. In reaction to her searches, Yasmine, with the help of Zeinab Samir, with whom she had worked, decided to create a website providing tips and expert advice […]
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Thursday, August 16th, 2012 by Chris Landers
“Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man’s rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth.” – Soweto Student, 1976 So often our […]
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2012 by Chris Landers
And to think, it all started with a couple of suitcases. When Lauren Slive first began her dream to improve health care in Ghana in 2007, she was just a 19-year-old girl dragging as many supplies as she could carry through airport customs. But from those humble beginnings sprang Project HEAL, an organization connecting medical […]
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