Francis Sewor was a star student throughout his years in school, overcoming daunting odds to excel. He entered Ashesi with perfect grades from the second-cycle level. It was tempting, for one with so much talent yet so little support, to ignore all others and just look out for himself. He did not. He took every opportunity at Ashesi — yes, to develop himself — but also to serve. He was a consistent volunteer for freshman orientation, graduation ceremonies, and other community-wide programs. He peer-tutored other students in math and programming, combining these with duties as one of our most effective Resident Assistants, managing a hall of more than fifty students.
Over the last four years, he has collaborated with various firms to develop important technologies: he built a fully functional mobile app for a water and sanitation enterprise. With a separate firm, he built and deployed technologies to support the firm’s systems in interfacing with the systems of partner organizations in a remarkable AI-driven health service innovation. You can always count on him to blow you away with the quality of his work. Whether he was serving as a data analyst with one of the country’s major telecom operators or supporting the library staff as a work-study student, he conducted himself with professionalism and brilliance. No duty is too lowly to command his maximum effort, and none is too intimidating to make him tremble. That is why he became a go-to problem solver for all: students, faculty, and staff.
He served numerous communities across Ghana directly as he took a tuition initiative he started in his hometown online, serving hundreds across the country, including students in other universities.
His background from a trading family has inspired his technology-enabled animal-rearing business, an interesting agribusiness startup that promises to unleash significant value for farmers, consumers, and investors. Multilingual in several local and international languages, and fluent in many more esoteric programming languages, this is a scholar, leader, and citizen who has risen against the odds to remind Ashesi that service ennobles the receiver and giver alike, but the biggest winner is society.
For his resilience, for his work ethic, for his positivity, and for his service to Ashesi and communities across Ghana, we present this award to FRANCIS KWAME SEWOR.
