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Ghanaian engineer and educator; founder and president of Ashesi University
Patrick Awuah Jr.
(born 1965) is a
Ghanaian
engineer, educator, and entrepreneur. Awuah established
Ashesi University
, a private, not-for-profit Ghanaian institution in 2002.
[1]
He has received awards
[2]
as an individual and as the founder of Ashesi.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
Life
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]
Awuah grew up in
Accra
,
Ghana
. He attended the
Achimota School
[8]
[9]
where he was a house prefect.
[
citation needed
]
He moved to the
U.S.
in 1985 to attend
Swarthmore College
with a full scholarship. He earned bachelor's degrees in Engineering and Economics, graduating in 1989. Following graduation, Awuah worked as a software engineer and program manager for Microsoft from 1989 to 1997. At Microsoft, he met his future wife, Rebecca, a software testing engineer.
[10]
In 1997, Awuah left
Microsoft
with the goal of returning to
Ghana
to educate the next generation of African leaders.
[11]
[12]
He enrolled at the
Haas School of Business
at
UC Berkeley
, focusing his work on preparing a business plan for Ashesi. Awuah, Nina Marini, and other graduate students from Berkeley went to Ghana to do a feasibility study for opening a private university there. Awuah graduated with his MBA in 1999. That same year, he moved back to Ghana with his family to found Ashesi University.
[1]
[13]
[14]
[15]
Awuah continues to serve as the president of Ashesi University.
[16]
Achievements and awards
[
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]
John Kufuor
presented Awuah the Order of the Volta Award to recognise his contribution to tertiary education in Ghana in 2007.
[3]
In 2009, Awuah won the John P. McNulty Prize.
[17]
In 2010, Awuah was awarded 87th most creative business person by
Fast Company
.
[18]
In 2014, he received
The Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award
, which honours
UC Berkeley
alumni with distinguished records of service to their native country.
[19]
In the same year he was named best social entrepreneur by the
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
.
[20]
In 2015, Awuah was listed by
Fortune
as number 40 in world's 50 greatest leaders
[5]
and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
[6]
In 2017, Awuah was awarded the
World Innovation Summit for Education
(WISE) prize, a major global education award.
[7]
See also
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References
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]
External links
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]