Herman Chinery-Hesse | |
---|---|
Born | 1963 (age 60–61) Dublin, Ireland |
Citizenship | Ghana |
Alma mater | |
Occupation(s) | Founder and Chairman of theSOFTtribe |
Children | 2 |
Parents |
|
Relatives |
|
Herman Kojo Chinery-Hesse (born 1963) is a Ghanaian technology entrepreneur and the founder of theSOFTtribe, the oldest and largest software company in Ghana. [1] [2] [3] He is popularly known as "the Bill Gates of Africa". [4] Chinery-Hesse also made the list of 15 Black STEM Innovators. [5] In March 2019, he was introduced as the Commonwealth Chair for Business and Technology Initiatives for Africa. [6]
Herman Chinery-Hesse was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1963 to Lebrecht James Nii Tettey Chinery-Hesse and Mary Chinery-Hesse, née Blay. [7] His maternal grandfather was Robert Samuel Blay, a barrister and Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana in the First Republic. Blay was the first Vice President of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), of which he was a founding member and a Speaker of the 1969 Constituent Assembly.
Chinery-Hesse was educated at the Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast, Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, and the Texas State University, from where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Technology. [8]
In 1991, Chinery-Hesse co-founded theSOFTtribe, one of the leading software houses in Africa. Over the years, the company has pioneered a number of groundbreaking products in the following areas:
His project "African Echoes" is aimed at creating African audio books for global consumption, such that for the first time ever Africans are in a position to tell their own stories to a worldwide audience. [9] He is an assessor for the Commercial Courts of Ghana. [10]
Chinery-Hesse and his company have won numerous awards and accolades, including the GUBA award in the UK for Exceptional Achievement, the Ghana Millennium Excellence Award for IT, the Ghana Club 100 Award for the Most Innovative Company, the "SMS" App of the Year Award, the Mobile World Lifetime Achievement Award and the Best Entrepreneur in Information and Communication Technology. He also won the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Texas State University, the first and currently only African recipient of the award. [1]
Chinery-Hesse has been a speaker at many prestigious institutions including the University of Oxford, Harvard Business School, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Chatham House and Tech4Africa. He has also played a supporting role in the realm of technology and innovation to many Ghanaian presidents in their international engagements. He is a TED Fellow and has featured heavily in the international media's reportage on technology in Africa, including CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera, and in publications such as the Ghana Business & Finance Times, The Guardian , Forbes Africa , New African , IEEE Magazine , The Financial Times , among many others. [1] [4] [11]
He was named one of "20 Notable Black Innovators in Technology", one of Africa's "Top 20 Tech Influencers", among the 2Top 100 Most Influential Africans of our Time", and one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" by Foreign Policy Magazine . [12] [13]
The University of Cape Coast (UCC) is a public collegiate university located in the historic town of Cape Coast in the central region of Ghana. The campus has a rare seafront and sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It operates on two campuses: the Southern Campus and the Northern Campus. Two of the most important historical sites in Ghana, Elmina and Cape Coast Castle, are a few kilometers away from its campus.
The Nzema are an ethnic group numbering about 328,700, of whom 262,000 live in southwestern Ghana and 66,700 live in the southeast of Côte d'Ivoire. In Ghana the Nzema area is divided into three electoral districts: Nzema East Municipal, also known as Evalue Gwira; Ellembele; and Nzema West, also known as Jomoro. Their language is also known as Nzima or Appolo.
Samuel Bazawule, known professionally as Blitz Bazawule and Blitz the Ambassador, is a Ghanaian filmmaker, author, visual artist, rapper, singer-songwriter, and record producer.
The GUBA Awards, or Grow, Unite, Build, Africa (GUBA) Awards, formerly known as the Ghana UK-Based Achievement Awards, are organized by GUBA Enterprise, a social enterprise organization dedicated to the support and advancement of Africans in the diaspora and Africans on the continent through various socio-economic programmes and initiatives.
Hesse is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Kojo Antwi, also known as "Mr. Music Man", is a Ghanaian Afro pop, highlife, reggae musical artist and a former Ghamro chairman. Born Julius Kojo Antwi into a family of 13 siblings, he grew up in Darkuman a suburb of Accra. He has 22 albums to his name, with "Tom & Jerry" became one of his most popular songs in West Africa Ghana.
Regina Honu, is a Ghanaian social entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Honu has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.
Ameyaw Kissi Debrah, who is known professionally as Ameyaw Debrah, is a Ghanaian celebrity blogger, freelance journalist, and reporter. He founded AmeyawDebrah.com, an entertainment website and blog that primarily publishes news about Ghanaian celebrities. He graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology with a bachelor's degree in publishing. While at KNUST, he won the Best Publishing Student award in 2005. He has made significant contributions to several pan-African websites, including Jamati.com, Orijin-ent.com, and ModernGhana.com.
Kwame Nsiah-Apau, known by his stage name Okyeame Kwame and nicknamed Rap Doctor, is a Ghanaian musician, songwriter, creative director and a Developmental Activist. His dual roles as an artist and an activist have led to his recognition as an "artivist."
St. John's School is an all-boys' second-cycle Roman Catholic school located at Sekondi in the Western Region of Ghana. The current curriculum falls within the Senior High School system in Ghana, with overall oversight by the Ghana Education Service. Graduates of St. John's School are affectionately known as Old Saints. Graduates include award-winning journalists, ministers, politicians, army majors etc....
Mary Chinery-Hesse,, née Blay is an international civil servant and diplomat serving as the first woman Chancellor of the University of Ghana, inducted on 1 August 2018. She was the first female Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization
Gina Ama Blay is a Ghanaian journalist and diplomat and a sympathizer of the New Patriotic Party of Ghana. She is currently Ghana's ambassador to Germany.
The Burial of Kojo is a 2018 Ghanaian drama film written, composed and directed by Blitz Bazawule. Produced by Bazawule, Ama K. Abebrese and Kwaku Obeng Boateng, it was filmed entirely in Ghana on a micro-budget, with local crew and several first-time actors. The film tells the story of Kojo, who is left to die in an abandoned gold mine, as his young daughter Esi travels through a spirit land to save him.
The Hesse family is a Ghanaian family of Dano-German origins. The progenitor of the family was Dr. Lebrecht Wilhelm Hesse, a German medical doctor and a subject of the Danish Crown under King Christian VII. Hesse was an employee of the Danish colonial administration. After qualifying in medicine and surgery, he sailed to the Gold Coast as a young bachelor in the late 1700s to treat chaplains from the Church of Denmark and its latter affiliate, the Danish Missionary Society, civil servants and garrison soldiers stationed at the Christiansborg Castle, now called the Osu Castle. He married a local Ga woman, Lamiorkai, from Osu Amantra in Accra.
Lebrecht Wilhelm Fifi Hesse was a Ghanaian public servant and the first black African Rhodes Scholar. He served as Director-General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation on two occasions. He was also a member of the Public Services Commission of Ghana.
Robert Samuel Blay, was a Ghanaian barrister and judge. He was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana during the First Republic. He is often referred to as the first Nzema lawyer. He was president of the Ghana Bar Association on two occasions and also a member of the first board of directors of the Bank of Ghana.
Lebrecht James Nii Tettey Chinery-Hesse, was a Ghanaian lawyer, civil servant and diplomat. He served as a specialist in legislative drafting in the service of Uganda, Ghana, Zambia and Sierra Leone. He is a former Solicitor-General of Ghana and once Acting Attorney General of Ghana.
Justice Nii Adjiri Williams, popularly known as Shikome is a Ghanaian master drummer. He was born on 3 June 1978 in Avenor, Accra, Ghana into a family of accomplished musicians and drummers including Okeyrema Akoto, Obo Addy, Mustapha Tetteh Addy, Yacub Addy and Aja Addy. In 2013, he was installed Obonufoi Atsɛ Nii Tlema II of Sowutuom Nsunfa after his grandfather Obo Addy who was Obonufoi Atsɛ Nii Tlema I. This position entitles him to lead all official drumming assignments for the Gã State.