THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW MODEL OF LEADERSHIP IN AFRICA – The story of Patrick Awuah by Adam Abubakar

 

In the year 1985, Ghana was a country under military rule, the economy has been crippled and markets have collapsed. During that time, a teenager by the name Patrick Awuah applied to Swarthmore college for a scholarship. He was fortunate his application was accepted and granted a near full scholarship to major in Economics and Engineering, requiring him to pay just $400. Due to the economic situation and condition of his family, Patrick couldn’t afford to pay, which prompted the U.S embassy to initially reject his application for a Visa.

   However, Swarthmore College settled Patrick Awuah’s new challenge by changing his near full scholarship to full scholarship. At Swarthmore College, Patrick scored high marks in his economics classes for his understanding of basic economics. Speaking at TED where he spoke about “Educating Africa’s future entrepreneurs” in June 2007 at Arusha Tanzania. Patrick Awuah narrates the way learning at Swarthmore College differs entirely from learning in Ghana.“The faculty there didn’t want us to memorize everything and repeat back to them as was used back in Ghana. They wanted us to be analytical. They wanted us to be concerned about social issues.” But Patrick learned something more profound than that, which is that the leaders, the managers of Ghana’s economy where making breathtakingly bad decisions that had brought Ghana’s economy to the brink of collapse.

   After graduating from Swarthmore, Patrick got a job at Microsoft Corporation and was working with Bill Gates and Rebecca, a Software testing Engineer that later became his wife. Patrick didn’t really fully understand what would have happen to him at Swarthmore College until he started working at Microsoft. “I was part of this team. This thinking, learning team whose job was to design and implement new software that created value in the world. It was brilliant to be part of this team and I realized just what had happened to me at Swarthmore, this transformation. The ability to confront complex problems and to design solutions to those problems. The ability to create is the most empowering thing that can happen to an individual, and I was part of that” he said.

   Patrick Awuah realized that Africa’s greatest challenge is that of leadership and when leaders fail, a nation literally suffers. It was clear that Africa was going in the wrong direction and he decided to get engaged. In 1998, he left Microsoft Corporation and enrolled at Berkeley’s Haas school of Business. In the same year, he and his friends travelled to Ghana to complete a feasibility study of creating a private University in Ghana and wrote Ashesi’s Business plan as his MBA thesis.

In 2001, Patrick returned to Ghana, leaving his job at Microsoft where he and Rebecca earned Millions to set up Ashesi University which was co-founded with Nina Marini in Accra to educate young Africans. The school opened in 2002 with 30 students and half of the students were on financial aid.

  

Currently, Ashesi offers four-year bachelor's degrees in business administration, computer science and management information systems. Seniors are required to complete a community service project before graduating—and many graduate with job offers from corporate Ghana and government ministries.