Innovators

Lead Now Foundation (LNF) was founded in 2007 and is a US nonprofit corporation working in conjunction with its Nigerian subsidiary NGO, Global Ed Learning. LNF’s Lead Now Labs program model focuses on boosting literacy, comprehension and critical thinking in Nigeria's primary and secondary schools. Lead Now Labs will also provide direct instruction in 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration and global awareness.  What distinguishes LNF's approach from other programs is the focus on 21st century skills, the use of reflection as a primary training tool for teachers, and ongoing professional development to promote lasting change and impact on education. LNF's "Fellows" initiative is also one of the few programs that will offer direct training for Nigeria's NYSC corps members, and the only program to offer ongoing professional development for this group.



LNF’s global influences include the Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership of Nigeria and the Akanksha School Curriculum (India) which has been implemented for some of Bombay’s indigent students successfully for 20 years. LNF incorporates the successful elements of these programs and philosophies and customizes them for Nigeria’s unique context and needs. LNF is currently working with Eternal Word Christian Schools International in Owerri, Nigeria to test and enhance the teacher training curriculum over the course of this school year.

Efe Osagie is the founder of LNF. While teaching in the United States, Efe served as 7th grade lead teacher at her school and led her students to achieve significant growth on state exams in English Language Arts. As a former elected public official to the Board of Education in Willingboro, New Jersey, Efe worked to increase student academic achievement for her district’s 4,500 students. She has worked for education organizations and municipal entities in areas spanning government relations to curriculum development.  Efe graduated as a Henry Rutgers Thesis Scholar with her BA in Journalism from Rutgers University, and earned her MGA in Governmental Administration at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Founded by Shane Immelman, the Lapdesk Company was born out of the need to address the difficulties faced by underprivileged children attempting to learn in less than adequate conditions. A school desk is one of the basic requirements for an effective educational experience. However in Africa alone there are more than 80 million school children who have little or no use of a desk in the classroom. 

The company aims to improve a child’s physical learning environment by providing Lapdesks, helping children to achieve higher grades, and ultimately helping them create a better life for themselves.

In contrast to the conventional school desk, which is expensive and unsuited to outside schooling and overcrowded classrooms experienced by these children in their learning environments, the portable Lapdesk offers a cost-effective, creative and proven solution suitable to any type of environment where schooling occurs.

The Lapdesk Company leverages support from corporations, international agencies and NGOs to effectively tackle classroom desk shortages. The desk itself offers advertising opportunities for corporations enabling the company to generate income while providing the desks to students for free.

Puo Educational Products (Puo) is a producer of educational products in African languages and with African images that are targeted at children from ages zero to nine. The mission of Puo is to invest in our languages while instilling pride in our cultures and traditions. In fulfilling its mission, the aim of Puo is to supply products that achieve the following:

• Provide an avenue through which to interact with and teach children African languages and culture;
• Increase the awareness and pride of varying cultures and languages of the African continent in order to appreciate our diversity and achieve a better understanding of one another;
• Educate and inform by developing children’s basic developmental skills; and
• Entertain.

Puo was started simply because as our children grow, learn and develop they need to have access to fun, vibrant and educational toys, products, games, etc. that are available in the languages of our continent. Through language we can all understand one another better, learn about other people's way of life, but also instil pride in our own cultures and traditions within this contemporary environment we live in.

Puo was established by Nthabi Sibanda, an entrepreneur who grew frustrated with how limited the options were for supplementing her children’s education with fun educational toys provided in her home language of Sesotho. 

Whiz Kids Workshop believes that mass-media can be the most cost-effective and immediate way to make an impact on large educational gaps in the developing world, particularly at the preschool level.  They use existing research on mass-media education, new lower-cost technologies for media creation, and booming growth in reach of television to put that belief into practice.

Whiz Kids Workshop are best known for the award winning, early-childhood educational television program “Tsehai Loves Learning,” which won two prestigious international children’s media awards in 2008.  The “Next Generation Prize” was awarded at the Prix Jeunesse International Children’s Television Festival in Munich, Germany in May of 2008, recognizing “Tsehai Loves Learning” for social impact, and high production quality relative to its small budget.  “Tsehai Loves Learning” also won the Preschool category at the 2008 Japan Prize for Educational Media in October, beating out many great educational television programs, games, websites, and toys from all over Asia, Europe, and North America.

Whiz Kids Workshop was established in the living room of husband and wife team Shane Etzenhouser and Bruktawit Tigabu in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2005.

Whiz Kids Workshop, through their popular television show, seeks to educate children about personal values such as honesty, justice, and commitment as well as prepare them academically to better succeed upon entering school.  Much of the program’s focus is dedicated to scholastic ideas such as expanding children’s vocabulary and understanding of numbers and letters, preparing them with a better attitude towards school, and enabling better relationships with peers.

African Leadership Academy (ALA) seeks to transform Africa by developing and supporting future generations of African leaders. Opened in September 2008, African Leadership Academy brings together the most promising 16-19 year old leaders from all 54 African nations for an innovative two-year program designed to prepare each student for a lifetime of leadership on the continent. Students are selected to attend the Academy based on merit alone and complete an innovative curriculum with a unique focus on leadership, entrepreneurship, and African studies. ALA graduates will attend the world’s finest universities and will lead Africa toward a peaceful and prosperous future.

African Leadership Academy was founded in 2004 with the belief that ethical leadership is the key to transforming the African continent. Founders Fred Swaniker, Chris Bradford, Peter Mombaur, and Acha Leke sought to create an institution that would develop, connect, and support those individuals who will lead the continent toward a peaceful and prosperous future. In the two years that followed, the founding team built a powerful network of advisors and developed a robust, sustainable operating model for the Academy, a world-class, pan-African secondary institution on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Ashesi University is a coeducational institution whose mission is to educate African leaders of exceptional integrity and professional ability.  By raising the bar for higher education in Ghana we aim to make a significant contribution towards a renaissance in Africa. The university, which began instruction in March 2002 with a pioneer class of 30 students, has quickly gained a reputation for innovation and quality education in Ghana. Ashesi is the first university in Ghana to adopt and blend the Liberal Arts method of education with majors in Computer Science, Management Information Systems and Business Administration. The university is an independent, private, not-for-profit institution. Ashesi was founded by Patrick Awuah, a Ghanaian who has spent over 15 years living and working in the United States. Awuah left Ghana in 1985 to attend Swarthmore College on a full scholarship, after which he worked for Microsoft Corporation as an engineer and a program manager for eight years. Experiencing firsthand the dramatic impact that education can have on one's life, Awuah embarked on a mission in 1997 to provide greater educational opportunities in Ghana. He enrolled in business school at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, both to evaluate the feasibility of his goal and to gain a broader range of managerial skills with which to found and manage a university.

Africa is witnessing the exciting rise of bold and creative business-minded entrepreneurs with sustainable solutions to help young people grow up wise.

These education innovators understand that wisdom gained through quality education is the path to abundant life and our single defense against the corruption of mankind and the destruction of the environment. They know that nobody is born with knowledge and discernment and that wisdom must be taught for people to make good choices in life. That’s why they are working so hard to ensure that education is relevant, affordable, and sustainable in its delivery.

Like the microfinance entrepreneurs of the 1970s, these education innovators are agents of a new revolution in Africa and the world at large. We at School Ventures celebrate their fascinating work and encourage impact investors to examine them as investment opportunities.

This series of blogs is intended to shine a spotlight on them and their contributions to education improvement.