Patrick Awuah Jr.

Patrick Awuah is an educator and entrepreneur building a new model for higher education in Ghana. Ashesi University, which Awuah founded in 2002, is a four-year private institution that offers a core curriculum grounded in liberal arts, ethical principles, and skills for contemporary African needs and opportunities. Awuah, a native of Ghana, was educated at American universities and began a successful career as a Microsoft engineer, but a vision for better higher education in Ghana drew him home. He saw a stark contrast between his college experience, which stressed critical thinking and problem solving, and the rote learning common in Ghana’s educational system. He was also convinced that a focus on ethical leadership in the next generation of Ghana’s leaders was the best means for combating pervasive corruption.

In a little over a decade, Ashesi is already firmly established as one of Ghana’s premier universities. Every one of its graduates has found quality employment, and almost all remain in Africa, where many have started much-needed information technology businesses. Awuah’s innovation in higher education is not only empowering individual students; it also has the potential to transform political and civil society in Ghana and other African nations by developing a new generation of leaders and entrepreneurs.

Before founding Ashesi, Awuah worked as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation. He is is a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and a member of the Tau Beta Pi honor society for excellence in engineering. He has also received the Millennium Excellence Award for Educational Development, was named a Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company magazine, the 4th Most Respected CEO in Ghana by a survey of his peers, Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2014 by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the 2017 WISE Prize for Education Laureate by the Qatar Foundation.

Awuah has bachelor’s degrees in Engineering and Economics, an MBA and honorary doctorates from Swarthmore College, Babson College and the University of Waterloo.