We are delighted to announce a brand new set of short courses designed for young global leaders from all around the world – African Leadership Academy’s Global Short Courses. These courses have been created to enable knowledge exchange between Africa’s future leaders studying at ALA, and students in different parts of the world. Building on ALA’s rigorous and practical leadership development, entrepreneurship and design-thinking courses, and an inspiring and informative African Studies curriculum, the courses provide a unique global learning opportunity for students in Grades 7 – 11.
Each year, students from a group of schools across Southern Africa come together for Derby Day, an activity-filled day comprising a range of sports and academic challenges. This year’s event was hosted at Maru-a-Pula School in Botswana, where, early this month, two ALA students walked away with both first and second prizes in the STEM competition. Fifteen different students took part in the competition, representing four schools from two countries. Out of those fifteen, Kenyan Michael Jembe Bongo ’18 came in 1st place with his “Co-Production of Energy from Wind and Solar” presentation, and Moroccan, Skylar Grace Montague Redecke ’18, won 2nd place with her presentation titled “Antibacterial Effects of Garlic”.
After noticing a big problem with fires, electric shocks, and house break-ins in his community in Arusha, Tanzania, first-year student Erick Simon Laizer ’19 decided to do something about it. Following a joint effort with his former classmate in 2015, the two problem solvers designed a unique smoke detector that connects to mobile networks to send automatic alerts to emergency response units within five seconds. For Erick, ALA has provided him with the opportunity to think even more deeply about his business and how he can strengthen it. “ALA was my number one choice because I have always loved how the school brings students from different countries together and having them focus on their entrepreneurial skills.
Every year, the African Leadership Academy Entrepreneurial Leadership department hosts an Entrepreneurial Festival, also known as E-Fest, which showcases unique solutions to grand challenges designed by first year students through the Original Ideas for Development (OID) units of the curriculum. The winning enterprise was ViC, a group of four students from Kenya, Tunisia, Madagascar and Burundi, who created an application that integrates sign language to text in order to bridge the gap between the hearing-impaired and hearing communities in Africa.
The Living Machine, a sustainable wastewater treatment system designed and implemented by African Leadership Academy alumni Wuntia Gomda ’17 of Ghana and Jesse Forrester ’17 of Kenya in 2019, has become a central component of teaching and learning in the Biology classroom at ALA. Head of Science and Technology Department, Hans Sowder, who has been leading The Living Machine installation, has incorporated this machine into his curriculum.
