The Scholarship, Leadership & Citizenship Award is given to graduates who have lived out Ashesi’s core values during their time at the university. These awardees have contributed in outstanding ways to Ashesi’s mission and have had a strong impact on the Ashesi Community. This is the highest award a student can receive at Ashesi and it is presented by the President of the University.
Nancy Mma-Ngaare Mba | Pamela Niyongere | Nana Adwoa Segua Agyemang Sereboo
This candidate’s approach to duty and work has taught us all about simplicity and getting the basics right. Whatever she does, she approaches it with focus, discipline, integrity, and grace. Her positive energy makes her a delight to work with. Her peers, faculty, and staff attest to how any team gets so much better when she is involved, leading quietly and effectively.
A Mastercard Foundation scholar who has been active in that community as well. She was a moderator during the Mastercard Foundation National Convening online and was assistant to faculty from Ashesi and McGill University in Canada in their research about how experiential learning programs in entrepreneurship enable Mastercard Foundation Scholars to develop career and business building skills. For her record of outstanding service, she was enrolled as a university fellow of the Clinton Global Initiative in February 2023.
She initiated the engineering diaries series so she and her fellow engineering students can benefit from the direct professional and personal advice of those ahead – alumni, faculty, and industry practitioners. As institutor of the diary series, she got involved in Ashesi’s twentieth anniversary celebrations as co-organizer of the engineering exhibition. Working with the dean, volunteers, and project leaders, they worked tirelessly to share the amazing work being done in the department with our community, donors, and families. She would subsequently establish the Ashesi Engineering Students Association, the first official grouping of engineering students under a single banner.
After volunteering with Weep Not Child Orphanage during her Leadership Four class, this young woman started Magnificent Smiles – or MSmiles – to support disadvantaged children. The organization teaches Math, Science, and computer lessons to children in orphanages and mobilize donations in cash and kind for them. Over 300 children have benefited from the work of MSmiles to date.
To honor her love for learning and teaching; and for her dedicated service to our community and beyond, we present this award to NANCY MMA-NGAARE MBA.
If we have been able to revive community spirit since reopening campus, it is in no small measure due to the work of this outstanding personality: a computer science major with interests in seemingly unrelated areas of politics, technology, and sports. Over the last year, this candidate has served as Student Government Fellow of the Open Society University Network. During the period of fellowship, she served as a panelist on webinars and organised workshops for students who wanted to develop their leadership capacity. In January, she participated in the Student Government Conference Fellows Conference in Bogota, Colombia where she again impressed organizers with her creativity, organisational skills, and grace.
She has founded the Think Tank Ashesi, a club to promote intellectually stimulating conversations about global issues. While doing this she ran two projects about how technology can be used to better manage healthcare delivery. Our award winner has recently initiated the Techbridge Burundi program to teach programming to young Burundians; this should better prepare them for jobs and opportunities of the future. Under her leadership, the Ashesi community witnessed a significant shift in sporting activities on campus. Several sports including volleyball, netball, esports and athletics were introduced to serve a wider range of sports interests. Already existing sports competitions like the football and basketball leagues were energised with more excitement and increased participation. Working with a close-knit team, she strengthened sporting engagement with other tertiary institutions and hosted several peer institutions for various games and honoured numerous invitations to those schools.
Perhaps, even more exciting, she and her team organised games between Ashesi and teams from Berekuso, helping to further nourish the already cordial relations between us and our host communities. These range of events and competitions culminated in the exciting football match this past semester between the student female and male teams and the staff and faculty female and male teams. The students v staffulty matches proved to be another great bonding exercise for the entire community. In all these events, our award winner oversaw logistics, security, and officiating with remarkable efficiency.
She introduced the annual USTUN Awards to recognise outstanding sports performers and the Sports Gala to celebrate the sports committee and associations. The first USTUN program, held last year, was one of the biggest on-campus events with over 400 attendants. The successor team held a second edition earlier this year. She has set the trail blazing during her tenure as chair of the sports committee of the Ashesi Student Council.
For her stellar example of leading with imagination, boldness, and poise we honour PAMELA NIYONGERE.
Nana Adwoa Segua Agyemang Sereboo
An outstandingly talented and energetic student who has served this community in varied ways. Our candidate is a doer who has led from behind. One who has embraced this community truly and sought to help make it better. In academics and right from the first year, this student was a tutor at both the Writing Center and Math Centers. Countless students did better in their schoolwork because of this student tutor’s work with them. Assisting not just her peers but upperclassmen who were having a tough time putting their thoughts on paper or solving some complicated math equations. Many who were tutored by her always shared that she made the experience fun and delightful. She didn’t mind walking you through the same concept repeatedly because she found fulfilment in serving.
She was instrumental in rolling out initiatives like the Hack-your-hall as the community sought to reintegrate successfully on return to campus. A constant feature at all meetings and events, she will offer brilliant ideas, her time and ceaseless effort to ensure complete success. She would even go out of her way to assist one of the eateries to restart operations when campus reopened in 2021. She created a marketing and advertising plan, created content, and handled copywriting for bulk SMS, posters, and email marketing. She also analyzed customer feedback leading to an approximately 70% increase in customer satisfaction in one month. All these initiatives led to the restaurant exceeding its revenue target by over 100% in the first week of its relaunch. It became a hotspot for students and the most preferred eating and social hangout after school hours. Her work did not end there. This restaurant was later offered a space on campus to serve even more students. This was a major milestone chalked and the restaurant owners constantly referred to the good work this student had done consistently from the time of their relaunch till they acquired the cafeteria space on campus.
In 2022, she was on a team with other students from Ashesi and the College of Wooster, in the United States, who consulted for the Aircraft team for Goodyear Tires. During this project, implemented under the Applied Mathematical Research Experience, her team used statistical tools to analyse the performance of Goodyear’s products for aircrafts. Earlier this year, she led her team to second place in the CFA Institute’s Business Research Challenge and presented her research on digital financial literacy at the World Congress of Undergraduate Research.
She has represented Ashesi excellently in other forums, including her work as a Global Ambassador for the Open Society University Network where she run monthly workshops that kept students at the many schools within the network informed and energised about issues affecting people of the world. She was a star applicant right from her admission and currently, one of our stellar students. She began with herself, and always put in her best; unsurprisingly, she is graduating as one of the very few with highest honours.
For demanding excellence of herself and others, and for her relentless service to all, we honour NANA ADWOA SEGUA AGYEMAN SEREBOO.