June 23, 2018
The Scholarship, Leadership & Citizenship Award is given on an annual basis to three graduates who have lived out Ashesi’s core values during their time at the university. The award is presented by the President of the University, and students who receive the award are those who have contributed in outstanding ways to Ashesi’s mission, and have had a strong impact on the Ashesi Community. This is the highest award a student can receive at Ashesi.
Maxwell Aladago ’18
This student is described as an embodiment of academic excellence and social consciousness. He has continuously displayed brilliant academic prowess, and exemplary leadership, in his involvement in class activity and community engagement projects. If you have ever wondered what living with Einstein might have been like, you should definitely spend some time with him.
Rightly so, he was selected to represent Ashesi at the Next Einstein Forum in Senegal in 2016. The forum, seeks to make Africa a global hub for science and technology and believes that the African continent can produce its own Einteins. We dare say the selection team got it right with this student.
Graduating today with near-perfect academic record, he has taken many opportunity to apply his scholarly aptitude to serve and mentor others. From his sophomore year through to his senior year, he served with Project Eureka, a science-tutoring community engagement project in Berekuso, where he facilitated laboratory sessions to help students.
A Mastercard Foundation Scholar, he has stood out among his peers as an exemplary academic, an inspiration and a quiet force for good.
For so strongly representing the Ashesi ideals of Scholarship, Leadership and Citizenship, we present this award to Maxwell Aladago.
Teni Agana ’18
This student is one of the strongest testaments to the power of determination, that Ashesi has ever seen. Coming from a humble background, she arrived at Ashesi having worked as a ‘kayayo’ to put herself through high school; and having arrived on campus a week after her classmates, she powered through initial challenges in and out of the classroom, and eventually became one of the strongest students in her class.
From serving as a student intern in Ashesi’s library, to a being a coach to high school students during Ashesi’s Innovation Experience programme, this student has continually demonstrated a spirit of service to her community
Having known the power of scholarships as a Mastercard Foundation Scholar here at Ashesi, she was instrumental in raising funds to see four girls through their senior secondary school education. She also led fundraising efforts to sponsor the education of 15 brilliant students from the Berekuso township, where she also teaches mathematics to children. In the words of a member of Ashesi’s team, ‘she is a constant reminder of the importance of equal opportunity and support for all young people’.
For many students in Ghana and beyond, who believe in their complete ability to overcome difficulty and pursue their dreams, this student represents a remarkable example.
For so strongly representing the Ashesi ideals of Scholarship, Leadership and Citizenship, and so much more, we present this award to Teni Agana.
Derick Omari ’18
Ask anyone on our campus about this student, and two phrases are bound to come up; ‘service to the under-resourced’ and ‘exemplary leadership’.
Since he joined the Ashesi community, his name has been synonymous with music and computer literacy. As a Sophomore, he founded the Berekuso Music Project, an after-school program where he and other students volunteered to teach music at the Berekuso High School. For him, this was his way of giving back to the world of music, which in his words, ‘changed his life.’ The project subsequently birthed the Berekuso Ensemble, a choral group made up of students from the Berekuso junior high school, who have to date performed here on campus, at the American Embassy in Ghana, and at other events.
Back on campus, this young man also helped establish the Ashesi Chorale; a music group made up of Ashesi students, which you heard sing here today. He also founded an I.T training programme targeted at under-resourced communities in Ghana, named Tech Era. In his words, Tech Era was established from a passion to see IT become a local language spoken by all Africans, including and especially, the underprivileged in society.
Guided by his leadership, Tech Era has grown into a multi – module organization, since its inception in 2015. To date, the program has founded robotics clubs in two technical schools, runs a program to teach I.T to visually impaired teachers and students at the Akropong School of the Blind, and has trained many students in rural areas to become computer literate.
It was his work with Tech Era, that got the attention of the Queens Young Leaders Awards selection team, which named him an awardee in 2018. He will be one 60 young leaders from around the world whose award will be presented this month by Queen Elizabeth II, in London.
A 2016 Dalai Lama fellow and nominated by his peers for several student leadership awards, we look forward to seeing this student make global impact as he graduates from Ashesi today.
For so strongly representing the Ashesi ideals of Scholarship, Leadership and Citizenship, we present this award to Derrick Omari.
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