After working at Microsoft for almost a decade, Patrick Awuah returned home to Ghana and cofounded Ashesi University, a small liberal arts college that aims to educate Africa's next generation of leaders. Its first class of students graduated in 2006.
Why you should listen
Patrick Awuah left Ghana as a teenager to attend Swarthmore College in the United States, then stayed on to build a career at Microsoft in Seattle. In returning to his home country, he has made a commitment to educating young people in critical thinking and ethical service, values he believes are crucial for the nation-building that lies ahead.
Founded in 2002, his Ashesi University is already charting a new course in African education, with its high-tech facilities, innovative academic program and emphasis on leadership. It seems more than fitting that ashesi means "beginning" in Akan, one of Ghana's native languages.
Patrikc Awuah is an alumnus of the TED Fellows program, having attended TEDGlobal 2007 in Arusha, Tanzania, and TED2009 in Long Beach, California. Find out more about the TED Fellows program. He is also a 2015 MacArthur Fellow.
Patrick Awuah’s TED Talk
More news and ideas from Patrick Awuah
News
We the Future: Talks from TED, Skoll Foundation and United Nations Foundation
September 27, 2018
We live in contentious times. Yet behind the dismaying headlines and social-media-fueled quarrels, people around the world — millions of them — are working unrelentingly to solve problems big and small, dreaming up new ways to expand the possible and build a better world. At “We the Future,” a day of talks at the TED […]
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2015 MacArthur ‘genius grant’ winners include two TED Fellows: Patrick Awuah and LaToya Ruby Frazier
September 29, 2015
The MacArthur Foundation revealed its list of 2015 Fellows this morning. Twenty-four people received the “genius grant,” a $625,000 no-strings-attached stipend — and two of them are TED Fellows: Patrick Awuah and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Patrick Awuah founded Ashesi University, a college in his home country of Ghana dedicated to educating Africa’s next generation of leaders by […]
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Africa's brain drain may have hidden benefits
August 21, 2008
Each year, untold numbers of bright young Africans — doctors and nurses, scientists and programmers — leave their home countries to live and work abroad. This continental “brain drain” has the predictable effect: Many experts believe the flight of health workers, scientists, and teachers hinder the continent’s development. “It will be impossible to achieve an […]
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