Juliet Uduji
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has supported 1,931 innovations with $1.1 billion.
The funds, which covered innovations in Africa, Asia and Pacific, were given to boost innovations in agriculture, digital finance, growth and trade, education, gender, health, humanitarian assistance, sanitation and hygiene, according to the Global Innovation Exchange (GIE), a platform for innovations, funding and insights.
Under its Changemaker Award, which celebrates an individual who has inspired change using personal experience or from a position of leadership, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recognised Hauwa Ojeifo of Nigeria for her work promoting gender equality.
Ojeifo is a sexual and domestic abuse survivor and founder of She Writes Woman, a women movement, which gives mental health a voice.
The Foundation also honoured Kenya-based empowerment organisation, Educate, for new series of skill-based, and intensive training bootcamps, to provide sustainable livelihood by equipping out-of-school youth with the skills..
Educate is piloting its eLearning platform NawiriPro to train 100,000 youths to become professional motorbike drivers in Kenya by 2023.
The empowerment organisation has launched a new bootcamp to support women and rural youths and create a marketplace for young people to access business services and resources.