Dear Friends,
This November, a group of Ashesi students traveled to Boston for the world’s premier synthetic biology competition. With the goal of providing a non-toxic alternative to traditional gold mining, the team successfully engineered an organism capable of extracting the precious metal from ore. These students were the first team to represent Ghana – or West Africa – in the competition’s history. One team member was third-year mechanical engineering student Nana Oye Djan, an Ashesi scholarship recipient.
“Anything involving science to alleviate a problem has always intrigued me,” says Nana. “At age nine, I wanted to be a genetic engineer to help cure HIV/AIDS. By age sixteen, I wasn’t so sure because there were so many problems to solve and so many different science-based fields. I cannot rightly predict where I see myself in a few years’ time, but I know that whatever I will do, whoever I will become, I will be working hard to transform the face of Africa.”
The Ashesi research team, led by Senior Lecturer Elena Rosca (not pictured), was awarded the Chairman’s Award and a silver medal at the competition.
Students like Nana are Africa’s future engineers, entrepreneurs, and leaders, and Ashesi’s mission is to provide these students the education they need to transform their continent. Ashesi is proud that 100% of our graduates receive job offers, with 90% electing to work in Africa and one in twenty starting their own businesses. Donor support has been vital to the success of our students. Nana’s engineering program, inaugurated in 2015, was financed by philanthropy; her studies, like nearly half of Ashesi students’, are supported by scholarships.
Ashesi’s goal is to grow our student body from 870 today to 1,200 by 2020, and donations will help us fund the programs, infrastructure, faculty development, and scholarships necessary to reach that goal. Nana and her classmates continue to prove that a contribution to Ashesi is not merely a gift, but an investment in Africa’s future. Please consider making a donation today to help us serve more students.
Together we will continue to empower Ashesi students with the critical thinking skills, concern for others, and ethical courage they will need to create a better future for Africa.
Sincerely,
Patrick Awuah
Founder & President, Ashesi University Foundation and Ashesi University College
P.S. To find out more about how your donation will make a difference, visit our priorities page.
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