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.
