Doreen Kessy

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Doreen Kessy
Strategic Outlook- Sub-Saharan Africa (26032681238).jpg
Kessy at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos
EducationAustralian Studies Institute in Nairobi,Kenya
Alma materLiberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia
OccupationCo-founder at STEM Girls Education
Website www.stemgirls.africa

Doreen Kessy is a Tanzanian entrepreneur and education champion, co-founder of STEM Girls Education. She is the former Chief Business Officer and Chief Operations Officer at Ubongo Learning Ltd, Africa's leading children's edutainment and media company. [1] [2] Kessy played a critical role in building Ubongo to help kids learn and love learning through mass media technologies such as TV, Radio and mobile phone. Over the year, she led Ubongo's operations most importantly it's commercial strategy, market expansion efforts across Africa, and language adaption and content distribution. She is known for her heart- led, authentic leadership style which fosters an environment that brings the best out of people. [3] She and the team at Ubongo believed that making learning fun is critical to kids engagement and performance, and therefore, leveraged storytelling, animation and music to help millions of kids in Africa learn maths,science,literacy, numeracy and more. [4] It is estimated that over 30 million family households in 41 countries in Africa watch and learn from Ubongo cartoons every week. [5]

Contents

Education and career

Kessy received a master's degree in Business Administration and a bachelor's degree in International Business and Economics from Liberty University in Virginia. Prior to Ubongo, Kessy worked with a variety of organizations including International Justice Mission, Wells Fargo and Smile Africa, and she designed poverty relief programs implemented in Zimbabwe and Zambia. [ citation needed ]

Activism

An Educational champion, Kessy seeks to improve and make difficult subjects in education more simple and easy to understood for African children. Ubongo teaches math and science through funny animated stories and songs. Kessy also provides the English voice of one of the characters in the Ubongo animated material, a monkey named Ngedere. [2]

Awards

On 10 October 2018, Kessy was among eight innovators who were awarded with African Union Education Innovation Prizes. The Innovating in Education Africa Expo 2018 took place in Dakar, Senegal. [6]

See also

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References

  1. http://www.sheroes.co.tz/sheroes.html Archived March 8, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Revised 7 March 2019
  2. 1 2 "Acumen East Africa Fellows Program" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 30, 2019. Retrieved May 31, 2019.
  3. "Frontpage Tanzania". finlandabroad.fi.
  4. Thomas Ehrlich and Ernestine Fu. "Educating Kids Across Africa Through A Local Cartoon Show". Forbes.
  5. "6 young leaders who are improving the state of the world". World Economic Forum.
  6. "Ten Innovators Pitch for AU Education Innovation Prizes | African Union". au.int.