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Meet the Top 10 finalists
Discover the changemakers named as Top 10 finalists for the Africa Education Medal 2023
Snehar Shah
CEO of Moringa School, Kenya
Mary Metcalfe
Former policymaker & CEO of Programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO), South Africa
Simi Nwogugu
CEO, JA Africa, Nigeria
Laura Kakon
Chief Growth & Strategy Officer of Honoris United Universities, Morocco
Martha Muhwezi
Executive Director of FAWE, Uganda
Rogers Patrick Kamugisha
Country Director, Educate!, Rwanda
Sara Ruto
Former Chief Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Kenya & former CEO of the PAL Network, Kenya
Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura
Executive Director at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, Rwanda
Grace Matlhape
CEO of SmartStart, South Africa
Mary Ashun
Principal of Ghana International School, Ghana
Snehar Shah
CEO of Moringa School, Kenya
Sneha Shah is CEO of Moringa School in Kenya, a learning accelerator committed to closing the skills gap in Africa’s job markets by delivering transformative tech-based learning in Software Engineering, Data Science, Cybersecurity, and Product Design to jobseekers, before connecting them with local and international employers in need of talent. Shah is now scaling the EdTech company across Africa.
Read more about Snehar Shah
Mary Metcalfe
Former policymaker & CEO of Programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO), South Africa
Mary Metcalfe is a South African educationist, activist, and Executive Director of the Programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO), an NGO whose work impacts 3 million learners. Metcalfe is a highly respected leader and a passionate advocate for equal education who has been instrumental in developing South African education policy.
Read more about Mary Metcalfe
Simi Nwogugu
CEO, JA Africa, Nigeria
Simi Nwogugu is CEO of JA Africa, part of the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated JA Worldwide, one of the world’s largest youth-serving NGOs that prepares young people for the future of work. She was first introduced to JA while working at Goldman Sachs in New York City. Impressed by the organisation, she quit her lucrative job at age 24 to bring JA to Nigeria, where it now reaches more than 100,000 young people annually, before going on to head up JA’s operations across the continent.
Read more about Simi Nwogugu
Laura Kakon
Chief Growth & Strategy Officer of Honoris United Universities, Morocco
Laura Kakon, from Morocco, is the Chief Growth and Strategy Officer of Honoris United Universities, the first and largest pan-African private higher education network committed to transforming lives through relevant education for lifetime success.
Read more about Laura Kakon
Martha Muhwezi
Executive Director of FAWE, Uganda
Martha Muhwezi from Uganda is Executive Director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a pan-African NGO working in 33 countries to empower girls and women through gender-responsive education.
Read more about Martha Muhwezi
Rogers Patrick Kamugisha
Country Director, Educate!, Rwanda
Rogers Patrick Kamugisha is the Country Director of Educate! in Rwanda, the largest youth skills provider in East Africa. Educate! tackles youth unemployment by partnering with schools and governments to equip young people in Africa with the skills to attain further education, overcome gender inequities, start businesses, get jobs, and drive development in their communities.
Read more about Roger Patrick Kamugisha
Sara Ruto
Former Chief Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Kenya & former CEO of the PAL Network, Kenya
Sara Ruto is the former Chief Administrative Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Kenya, and former CEO of the PAL Network - a South-South network of organisations in Africa, South Asia and Central America undertaking large-scale, citizen-led assessments and actions to improve foundational literacy and numeracy. Dr Ruto impact’s has been felt across her three decades in academia, civil society and government. Her work on education reform in Kenya saw her awarded the ‘Elder of the Burning Spear’ (EBS) Presidential Award in 2019.
Read more about Sara Ruto
Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura
Executive Director at Agahozo Shalom Youth Village, Rwanda
Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura is Executive Director of Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) in Rwanda, an organisation that empowers orphaned and vulnerable youth to build lives of dignity and contribute to a better world. Nkulikiyimfura was born a refugee in Burundi. His parents were both orphaned and fled Rwanda in 1961, but taught their children that they would one day return to Rwanda and restore justice and dignity for all. Nkulikiyimfura did exactly that after the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi and began working to fulfil this promise.
Read more about Jean-Claude Nkulikiyimfura
Grace Matlhape
CEO of SmartStart, South Africa
Grace Matlhape is CEO of SmartStart in South Africa, a social franchise that seeks to ensure every young child has access to a quality early learning programme in preparation for the opportunities ahead. Matlhape built SmartStart from the ground up into South Africa’s largest network of home-based early learning practitioners with more than 9,000 practitioners and 60,000 children.
Read more about Grace Matlhape
Mary Ashun
Principal of Ghana International School, Ghana
Mary Ashun is Principal of Ghana International School (GIS), an independent not-for-profit school that provides an internationally diverse experience which instils mutual understanding, promotes holistic development, and teaches life skills to produce responsible global citizens.
Read more about Mary Ashun
Join our community of changemakers
Stay tuned to learn more about Africa Education Medal and learn first when the Winner is announced
