Builders of Africa’s Future

African Diaspora Network’s nomination committee has identified 10 Builders of Africa’s Future awardees this year. Each BAF Awardee will receive a $5,000.00 Financial Award thanks to our partners at the United States African Development Foundation (USADF) and training thanks to the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

Alfred Chengula

Co-Founder & COO at Imara Technology

Alfred Chengula comes from Mbeya, Tanzania, and has a background in sales, marketing, and operations. Alfred is a lifelong entrepreneur who started his first business of making key chains while he was at high school in order to pay his university fees. After receiving his bachelor degree in Community Development from Ardhi University in Tanzania, Alfred joined Off-grid Electric, where he managed sales teams to sell solar home systems in rural areas. In 2016 Alfred followed his passion for entrepreneurship to help found Imara Tech, a social enterprise start-up that makes agricultural machines for small farms.

About Imara Tech

Imara Tech’s vision is to bring prosperity, resilience, and sustainability to every farm in Africa. Our mission is to enrich the lives of smallholder farmers by empowering communities with locally made, productive-use technologies. Our end-users are the 26 million people living and working on smallholder farms across Tanzania. The MCT cuts threshing times by days or even weeks, allowing farmers to spend their time as they see fit, whether that’s running other businesses or taking care of their homes.

Chibuzo Opara

Co CEO of DrugStoc

With a passion for disrupting barriers to access within the healthcare system, Dr. Chibuzo Opara is co-founder and co-CEO of DrugStoc, a cloud based pharmaceutical IT distribution platform which provides access to verified quality pharmaceutical products for healthcare facilities and professionals. He previously worked with the WHO, World Bank, the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund and the IFC in the fields of healthcare financing and supply chain management. Netherlands, Nigeria, Belgium, Switzerland, Cameroun, Liberia, Kenya and Vietnam are a few countries he has worked in. He holds degrees in medicine & surgery and economics, policy and management from the University of Maastricht, Netherlands.

About DrugStoc

DrugStoc is a secure and interactive procurement platform (Online/Offline) that empowers healthcare providers by giving access to safe and quality pharmaceutical products through our consolidated supply chain system. DrugStoc innovates to provide all licensed health workers in Nigeria a hassle-free procurement platform to source all the medications, consumables, and small medical devices they need for their patients or practice.

Winnie Gitau

Co-founder of Kwangu Kwako Limited

Winnie Gitau, Co-founder of Kwangu Kwako Limited, is an experienced NGO project manager with a degree in education and nutrition. Winnie volunteered with VSO for 3 years in Mozambique working in the HIV and maternal health sectors followed by secure livelihoods work in Kenya. More recently Winnie gained experience supporting NGO and social enterprise organizations with their sales training, recruitment and office management. A skilled facilitator, Winnie’s combined local knowledge, robust organizational skills and training capabilities is valuable to Kwangu Kwako as a growing enterprise. Additionally, her flexibility and dynamism in the formative initial periods has been invaluable.

About Kwangu Kwako Limited

Kwangu-Kwako is a social enterprise that builds safer, healthier, affordable homes for families in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya. The houses are built from reinforced precast concrete panels made by local artisans within the target community, providing sustainable livelihoods to those most in need. The Kwangu-Kwako solution is easily scalable and transferable to other communities, cities and countries.

Derrick Hosea Opio

CEO & Founder at Onelamp

Derrick Hosea Opio has a background in LLB and Bsc Accounting & Financial Management. He is an Alumni of the Halcyon incubator, DO School NYC Sustainable Cup Challenge and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society. He is also a 2017 recipient of the World Summit Young Innovators Award, a 2016 Power Africa Offgrid Energy Grant Challenge Winner and recipient of the 2015 African Rethink Awards Grand Prize. Derrick is also a member of the Inclusive Business Accelerator and Empowering People Network, an initiative of Siemens Stiftung that promotes appropriate technological solutions for the major areas of basic supply in emerging markets

About Onelamp

At Onelamp, we believe that education and solar energy should go hand in hand as the most effective way of breaking the cycle of poverty plaguing rural communities in Uganda and the African continent. We recognize light as a critical enabler to quality education for the world´s deprived and underserved. As a social enterprise our main goal is to provide affordable clean, safe and efficient lighting technology to 7.5 million children attending rural schools in Uganda, where only 1% have access to electricity and 78% of the primary schools are found in rural areas. Our approach is to provide individual affordable solar bulbs directly to students and Onelamp light cards at $2 for an entire academic term of access to clean light.

Dysmus Kisilu

CEO and Founder of Solar Freeze

Dysmus Kisilu is the founder of Solar Freeze, a company that specializes in providing renewable energy solutions (solar powered irrigation kits and solar powered cold storage units) to smallholder farmers in Kenya to increase agricultural productivity. To date Dysmus has worked with 3,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya to increase agricultural yields by more than 150 per cent from 2016 to date. Dysmus is also the founder of “Each one, teach one- Train and Earn” an initiative within Solar Freeze that aims to impact the next generation of renewable energy for agriculture leaders in Africa by mentoring young people aged 18-29 years.

About Solar Freeze

Solar Freeze is pioneering mobile cold storage units powered by renewable energy for rural smallholder farmers, to help them reduce the huge challenge of post-harvest loss. In much of the developing world, postharvest losses are as high as 80% and the cold-storage chain is virtually non-existent due to the high cost of equipment and spotty electricity. Solar Freeze uses an integrated approach to Postharvest management recognizing that it is a systems-based challenge and requires an integrated innovation strategy that incorporates technological and financial innovations, capacity building across the value chain, enhanced market access and other elements to achieve impact at scale.

Eng Chrispinus Onyancha

Founder & CEO at clinicPesa

Over the years, Onyancha Chrispinus has attained a wealth of experience in governance, engineering, finance and entrepreneurship. Onyancha offers a unique blend of leadership, vision and knowledge. He is currently the Founder and CEO of clinicPesa Ltd, a social venture that seeks to transform affordability in Africa’s healthcare financing and innovation pyramid. Previously, he has served as a technology consultant with multinational corporations, a senior software engineer & system architect, a chief technical officer and chief executive in a blend of companies in Uganda and Europe.

About clinicPesa

At clinicPesa, we empower every person and organization to save lives and do more. We do what we do because we believe, “No one should be denied access to healthcare because they can not afford it”. We do it by providing access to affordable healthcare financing to the uninsured in the African Markets. clinicPesa provides you with access to healthcare financing that is more convenient and affordable than the traditional Insurance, through a digital micro-loans and savings platform for setting aside dedicated healthcare funds used to offset medical bills and purchase drugs in time of need at our registered clinic, hospital or pharmacy.

Waceke Nduati

Founder of Centonomy

Waceke Nduati is the Founder of Centonomy Ltd which she started in 2009 in Kenya. She is an Author and Entrepreneurship Coach. She is driven by her passion for teaching people how to create wealth. Centonomy, under her leadership, has been able to significantly change the lives of people in the East African region. This has been done through the various financial literacy as well as entrepreneurship coaching programs which have reached over 200,000 people directly and over 1 million though their digital platforms.

About Centonomy

Centonomy is a financial consultancy firm that teaches people how to manage money and create wealth. We have three main Personal Finance Management courses that we run at different times of the year. We work with Individuals, Corporates and Investment Groups. Each course is tailor-made to suit a specific demographic depending on your preference.

Ian Tarimo

Co-founder and Executive Director of Tai Tanzania

Ian Tarimo is a passionate youth leader who believes that education is a powerful tool for solving the existing community challenges and shaping the future. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. He has over 8 years of experience working in community project management and leadership. Since 2013, Ian is the co-founder and Executive Director of Tai Tanzania, an organization that aims at increasing access to information and facilitating dialogue on issues that prevent young people from acquiring education sufficient for them to effectively engage in social and economic development.

About Tai Tanzania

Tai Tanzania is a youth-led organization that envisions a society where young people are socially responsible leaders in sustainable development. We aspire for change and growth. Tai Tanzania uses the power of combining data, storytelling, and technology to inspire behavior changes among young people. Currently, the organization uses edutainment, (3D animations) based on true stories to address the obstacles that prevent girls from accessing education ie. teenage pregnancy, child marriage, FGM, Menstrual Hygiene Management, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) etc. These contents are also used to influence decision-makers to take actions that will improve the learning environment.

Ken Oloo

Founder and Team Lead of Filamujuani

We become the stories we tell. When we tell better stories we live out better stories with our lives. Ken Oloo founded Filamujuani Foundation to train youth to tell better stories in their communities, where they set up community studios. The youth also make a living from the creative industries by working as videographers and photographers. Since its inception in 2011, Filamujuani has trained over 600 youth from Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Congo, Togo, Cameroon, and Nigeria. The youth have served clients such as PwC, Standard Chartered Bank, and the Acumen Fund.

About Filamujuani

Filamujuani began in the year 2008. It came about from a passion to help eliminate poverty creatively-by teaching young people how to tell their stories using video and photography. Filamujuani is a combination of two Swahili words – Filamu, meaning films and Juani, meaning, in the sun. Loosely translated it means Films in the Sun in Swahili. We believe that telling your own story is not only cathartic but also uplifting and a life skill worth having.

Prince Tillya

Co-Founder and Managing Director of FixChap

Prince Tillya has over 5 years of experience in Business and Entrepreneurship with a focus on Information technology, manufacturing, product development and marketing. Currently, Prince is the Co-founder and Team Lead of FixChap, where he deals with the overall management of the company on bridging the trust gap between home/office owners with handymen/fixers. Prince holds an MBA from Mzumbe University where he focused on Product development and Corporate Management.

About FixChap

FixChap is a digital platform bridging the trust gap between home owners/offices with servicemen by giving them access to verified servicemen within their localities. Payments are done securely directly to us. The serviceman is only paid upon customer’s satisfaction. Servicemen performances are monitored through customer reviews and ratings after the service. The versatility of FixChap allows servicemen to only take deals/repair jobs when they want to by logging in online via our App, as a result people name us as “an uber for repair services”. FixChap brings order and structure to this highly fragmented industry.

Sr. Celestina Nwodo

Catholic Rev. Sister, Notre Dame Girls’ Academy

Sr. Celestina Nwodo is a Catholic Rev. Sister from the Congregation of Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur is a religious institution in the Catholic Church working in different countries of the world including Nigeria. Her apostolate is all round education for the poor especially the girl child. Sr. Celestina works in Notre Dame Girls’ Academy, Amoyo, Kwara State, Nigeria as the school bursar.

Notre Dame Girls’ Academy is owned and managed by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in Nigeria to give quality and affordable education for the poor especially girls, who are most of the time disadvantaged. Students learn academic and acquire skills such as tailoring and sewing, making of footwear, flower vas, earrings, necklace, bead-bangles etc. The students are being taught Artwork and drawings, Catering, weaving and many other skills. The vision of our organization is to prepare young women for life.

About Notre Dame Girls’ Academy

Notre Dame Girls’ Academy, Amoyo is a Catholic day/boarding secondary school for girls. The school was established in September 2007. It is owned and managed by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Nigeria province. In line with the mission of the congregation, which is ‘Making Known God’s goodness’ by educating for life, and in response to the needs in society, the school is poised to prepare and equip young girls for life. It is situated in a serene area that is conducive for scholarly activities.The academy is a vibrant and dynamic institute of learning that welcomes girls who meet the standard requirements irrespective of their religious, economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, as they believe every child counts and can blossom into the best person the good God has made her to be.