When the power goes out, patients’ oxygen supply shouldn’t. This is what Agasha Faith Anne Maria, founder of PearlOxy Uganda Limited, and her team are working to ensure.

Their innovation, Medium-Pressure Oxygen Storage (MPOS), stores oxygen while electricity is available and automatically supplies it to patients when the power fails. But developing a promising solution is only part of the journey. For an innovation like MPOS to reach the facilities and patients who need it, its creators must also navigate questions of regulation, product testing, adoption and many more.

Together with Agasha, 34 others will  explore other innovations at the maiden Translational Research & Innovation Bootcamp 2026. Organized by Ashesi University, Yemaachi Biotechnology, and the African Institute of Biomedical Science and Technology, the bootcamp aims to help scientists and innovators with early-stage innovations bridge the gap between a promising prototype and a commercially viable product.

Selected from nine African countries, including Ghana, the  participants are working across health, biotechnology, and biomanufacturing. Their innovations address different needs, from improving access to medical imaging to enabling the transport and storage of clinical samples for disease diagnosis.

Edward Pie M’28’s interest in technology began with a fascination with machines that could think, learn, and act on their own. 

More than a decade later, his career in software engineering has taken him through cloud-native systems, artificial intelligence, fintech, and technical leadership in Ghana and Germany. Yet the original interest in intelligent machines has remained. 

This interest now brought Pie to Ashesi University to pursue a master’s degree in Mechatronic Engineering. “Mechatronics brings together computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering,” he said. “It’ll give me an opportunity to build the multidisciplinary knowledge for the design of intelligent physical systems while drawing on my AI and software expertise.”

One area that interests him is robotics. Pie sees reinforcement learning, which enables machines to learn through trial and error, as a promising route toward more adaptive robotic systems. “Training such systems directly on physical machines can be expensive, time-consuming, and unsafe,” he admits. “But I hope to explore how cloud infrastructure and some simulation environments can be used to train and evaluate robotic systems at scale before they are deployed.” 

His interest in intelligent machines is also closely connected to a broader question: how technology can help Africa create more value from its own resources. This is because Pie is particularly interested in agriculture, and value addition to natural resources.  Energy efficiency forms part of that vision, including the potential use of solar thermal technologies and other systems that can reduce dependence on conventional electricity. 

Exposure to structured engineering environments,precision, and strong research ecosystems in Germany  as wells as other conditions in Ghana have been great learning curves. These experiences, taught him the importance of designing around resource constraints, and diverse user needs.

When asked what returning to school after years of leading and mentoring engineers feels like, he said “I have always considered myself a student of life and I believe that learning is as essential as breathing.” He looks forward to questioning his assumptions, while remaining open to what others can teach him.  

Outside work and formal study, that curiosity continues in his home lab, where he takes on technology projects simply for the challenge and hands-on learning they provide. He takes inspiration from engineering creators such as Mark Rober, Jeremy Fielding, and Aaed Musa, to experiment with ideas and turn them into working solutions. 

“Strong institutions do not grow on their own. They are built by people who know how to lead and create systems that allow others to succeed.” This is a lesson Reginald Nsowah M’28 has encountered across two very different worlds: the Ghana Air Force and entrepreneurship. Across both, his work has centered on developing people, strengthening organizations, and creating opportunities for others to grow. 

With more than a decade of commissioned service as an Air Force engineering and training officer, Nsowah has developed an understanding of what it takes to prepare people for leadership. He currently serves as the Assistant Director of Training at the Ghana Air Force, where developing people’s capabilities and preparing them to lead remain central to his work. 

Beyond the military, Nsowah has pursued entrepreneurship, mentorship, and initiatives that support emerging talent. For instance, he co-founded Ticketmiller, a web- and USSD-based event ticketing platform and served as Hub Manager at Afrolynk Hub as well. As Hub Manager, he supported the incubation and acceleration of businesses founded by young entrepreneurs in Takoradi. He also designed the Women Entrepreneurs Program, which equips women entrepreneurs with the skills to build more resilient and scalable businesses.

His work with young people has also expanded into a Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) , media, and technology. Through Ideatronix, a STEM venture he is currently developing, Nsowah is working with schools and universities to establish some STEM laboratories. These laboratories will provide students with training in robotics and artificial intelligence. He has also launched the Deciding to Win Podcast, which connects African youth with mentors and role models. The Gamers Change Lives Podcast, which is also his initiative,  explores the potential of gaming and esports to create jobs for young people in developing countries. 

While these pursuits span different fields, according to Nsowah, they are united by a shared belief: African youth can achieve more with the right support, guidance, and opportunities.

“I am passionate about startups and mentorship because I believe in the potential and talent of the youth in Africa to create, to build and deliver value,” he says.  

Nsowah is now part of Ashesi’s Master of Business Administration(MBA) Class of 2028, bringing his experience into the program. He sees the program as an opportunity to build on what he has learned through experience and deepen his ability to support startups and businesses. He is also drawn to Ashesi’s community and its emphasis on ethical leadership. 

During his studies, Nsowah hopes to deepen his understanding of business and leadership while contributing his operational and entrepreneurial experience to the class. 

Many professionals pursue a Master of Business Administration(MBA) hoping the lessons they learn will prove useful someday. For Christian Boakye Yiadom M’27, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pizzaman Chickenman, a fast-food brand, that “someday” often arrives before the next class. 

Currently enrolled in the Ashesi MBA, Boakye Yiadom has developed a new routine: learn on the weekend, apply the lesson at work, evaluate the results, and repeat. “There’s never been a single course in class that I haven’t learned anything worth applying to my business from,” he said. “And when I try it, it works.” 

That approach has turned his MBA into more than an academic experience. It has become an ongoing process of refining a business he has spent the past eight years building. Through the program, he says, he has gained a deeper understanding of the principles behind many of the decisions he previously made based on experience. 

One area where that learning has made a difference is employee performance management. Insights from one of his favorite courses, Managing People, Culture and Performance, prompted him to rethink how the business approaches rewards, recognition and discipline. “Overall, these changes have started producing some good results just in the past few months,” he said.  

The changes have extended beyond individual policies. Leadership development programs across the business have been institutionalized and tailored to different levels of responsibility. Drawing lessons from his MBA classes, Boakye Yiadom also helped establish an internal e-learning platform where employees can access training modules and learning materials and complete assessments. 

As Ashesi University expands its range of programs and welcomes students at more levels of learning, the University is also strengthening the role of research in its academic experience. This growth is reflected in the inaugural Ashesi Program for Innovation, Research, and Entrepreneurship (ASPIRE), which has selected nine faculty-led projects for its 2026 fellowship. 

ASPIRE is an integrated research and innovation program designed to support faculty research that addresses important challenges in Ghana and the wider African context. The fellowship also creates opportunities for faculty to generate knowledge that can enrich teaching and learning, while giving students greater exposure to research in practice. 

The nine projects span Ashesi’s six research clusters: Sustainable Technologies & Climate Resilience; Healthcare, Food Systems & Bio-Innovation; AI, Robotics & Intelligent Futures; Business, Entrepreneurship & Market Innovation; Policy, Governance, Law & Ethics; and Education, Culture & Social Advancement. 

The research addresses challenges that range from food preservation and healthcare to digital fraud, workplace well-being, legal reform, and science education. In Accra’s vegetable markets, for example, Gideon Ofori Osabutey and Dr. Kwame Adjei-Mantey will investigate whether affordable evaporative cooling can reduce food spoilage. Their study will also examine the social and economic factors that influence whether traders adopt and maintain the technology.

In healthcare, Kwabena Bamfo will assess i-SpEye, a smartphone application designed to help frontline health workers identify patients who may require cataract treatment. The project will test the application against clinician-checked local eye images and examine the considerations needed for its responsible deployment. 

Questions around technology and learning feature  in three of the projects under AI, Robotics & Intelligent Futures. As generative artificial intelligence and cross-device sharing tools continue to challenge traditional approaches to assessing student work, Dr. Adjepon-Yamoah introduced Notebook. It is an application that turns a student’s laptop into a secure, distraction-free examination environment. The research will examine the effectiveness of non-invasive approaches to assessment and their potential impact on factors such as student test anxiety.

More than 2.4 million children in Ghana experience childhood food poverty, a challenge that extends beyond access to food and into the systems that shape children’s nutrition. Seeking to better understand these underlying factors, an Ashesi student team, comprising Innocent Chikwanda M’27 and Princess Tracy Agyemfra-Acheampong’27, Nicole Sibanda’26 and Dyllis Annan M’27 applied systems thinking to examine this issue. Their work earned third place at the Map the System (MTS) competition. Organized by the University of Oxford, the competition challenges participants to investigate complex social and environmental issues through systems thinking, emphasizing deep understanding over quick solutions.

To explore the drivers of child food poverty in Ghana, the team combined evidence from more than 60 peer-reviewed studies, national surveys, and policy reports with qualitative fieldwork involving caregivers and schools in Accra and Wa. They used purposive sampling to gather firsthand perspectives before analyzing their findings.  

Their research revealed that many caregivers lacked a clear understanding of what constituted a nutritionally adequate diet for young children. Economic pressures often led families to prioritize meals that could feed the entire household over those that met children’s nutritional needs. The team also found that convenience, changing lifestyles, and the widespread marketing of ultra-processed foods contribute to poor childhood nutrition across households of all income levels. 

“The whole paradox of the project is that it’s not something that only exists in poor households, ” Agyemfra-Acheampong explained. ” It also exists in very rich households as well, and even in the middle class.” 

After about a decade in skincare consulting, formulation, and training, Carol Maclean M’27 built Authentic Radiance into a growing skincare business. As the company evolved, she realized that sustaining its growth would require her to think more strategically about its future. 

Now a year into the Ashesi MBA, Maclean is applying lessons from the classroom to the decisions she makes as an entrepreneur. “I remember one of the reasons I applied for the Ashesi MBA was to learn how to put my business into perspective,” she says. “So far, that expectation has been met and more.” 

Joining the pioneer cohort, Maclean did not anticipate how much she would learn from her classmates. Each weekend, she studies alongside professionals from different industries, each bringing perspectives that enrich classroom discussions and group work. Coming from a biological science background, she says the cohort’s diversity has broadened her approach to problems and challenged her to think beyond a single perspective. Over time, her classmates have become a trusted network she can turn to for advice, feedback, and expertise. 

Maclean appreciates the program’s combination of academic rigor and practical application. Through case studies, reflection exercises, and Fireside Chats with experienced business leaders, she is challenged to connect management theory with the realities of leading an organization. “At the Ashesi MBA, you cannot just do things halfway,” she says. “You are required to give your best.” 

Beyond the classroom, the lessons from the Ashesi Venture Incubator (AVI)are also shaping Maclean’s approach to Authentic Radiance. Through AVI, she has been able to apply new ideas to her business while receiving mentorship and funding as she works through the challenges of building a growing enterprise. “Through the AVI, I’ve learned how to document my business processes more accurately, gather customer insights, and plan strategically for growth,” she says. “I’ve also learned customer discovery methodologies and feedback systems that have improved how I develop products and serve customers.” 

The experience has encouraged Maclean to be more intentional about building systems for the business, making decisions based on customer insights, and planning for long-term growth. “My coach has become a trusted advisor,” she says. “He helps me identify opportunities and holds me accountable for making progress.” 

For her, one of the strengths of the Ashesi experience is that learning does not stop when class ends. Questions raised in the classroom find their way into her business, while the realities of building a company give her new ways to engage with the concepts discussed each weekend. “Rather than treating education and entrepreneurship as separate experiences, Ashesi has created an ecosystem where each strengthens the other,” Maclean says. 

Just as important has been the sense of community she has found along the way. “Balancing graduate school, entrepreneurship, and family life is demanding, but having classmates, faculty, and mentors who are invested in one another’s growth has made the journey more sustainable,” she says. 

While pursuing a master’s degree in the Ashesi ETH Zurich Mechatronic Engineering program, Eleazar Archer M’24 and his colleagues co-founded MESADA PCL, an agritech startup. The venture is focused on developing a planter that will enable farmers use fewer inputs and achieve higher yields. 

With initial funding from the Ashesi Design Lab and later support from the Ashesi Venture Incubator (AVI), the team built and refined their prototype. Subsequently, it was piloted on selected commercial farms and is currently undergoing an upgrade to expand the planter from a three-row to a six-row system with increased speed and planting efficiency. 

The journey that led Archer to MESADA began long before he arrived at Ashesi. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he worked on factory design and utility systems in Ghana’s Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector, contributing to the design of manufacturing facilities and industrial utility infrastructure; yet he recognized the need to expand beyond traditional mechanical engineering. 

The combination of automation and production engineering in the Ashesi–ETH Zurich Master’s in Mechatronics Engineering drew him to the program. Enrolling, he encountered its rigor, which left little room to defer effort until tests or quizzes. “You have just a short time to understand something completely new and be expected to apply it immediately,” Archer recounts. The pace of learning, he mentions, “pushed him beyond his mechanical engineering foundation, requiring him to build competencies in Python and control systems.” 

These skills came in handy across several projects. For instance, he worked with a team to develop a compact indoor vegetable-growing system to address the challenge of limited backyard gardening space in urban settings. On another project, he contributed to the design of a constrained robotic system capable of navigating a defined path and crossing a trench. The work required integrating mechanical design, sensing, and control within strict size and component constraints. “After a while, I felt more comfortable handling projects that were of different engineering dimensions other than what I was used to,” Archer admits. 

Before arriving in Ghana, Reeve Helvoigt, a student at the College of Wooster, had spent much of her academic journey working with data sets, statistical analyses, and existing research. Like many researchers, she usually relied on secondary data. What she had never done was gather the data herself. 

A few weeks into the Ashesi Summer Research Consulting Internship Program, Helvoigt was conducting fieldwork in communities across the Akuapem South Municipality. Through conversations with residents and key stakeholders, she gained insight into challenges affecting education, tourism, and agriculture. 

“This learning curve came with a lot of trial and error, and there were times I was kicking myself because I thought I had asked the wrong questions in the survey,” she admitted. “But I guess it gets better with time as you evolve and build your skill set.” 

Working in teams of three, two Ashesi students and one student from the College of Wooster, the student consultants were to prepare a blueprint for tackling the challenges identified. 

Team Epsilon focused on declining learning outcomes in basic education, identifying challenges related to infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, and staffing. Their recommendations included educational radio programing, teacher professional development initiatives, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) mentorship programs, and book donation drives in collaboration with Ashesi University. 

Another group, Team Tau, explored why tourism in the municipality has yet to reach its full potential despite its many attractions. Through conversations with stakeholders, the students identified gaps in destination promotion and opportunities for stronger coordination across the tourism sector. Their recommendations included improving digital visibility through a centralized tourism website, expanding recreational activities at selected sites, and strengthening destination storytelling. 

The third team, Team Alpha, explored factors affecting agricultural productivity and profitability among farmers. Their research highlighted challenges related to storage facilities, access to financing, fragmented farming practices, and market access. To address these issues, the students proposed the strengthening of farmer associations, the expansion of agricultural financing opportunities, and the creation of dedicated market days to connect farmers directly with buyers. 

While research and consulting were central to the internship, the program also created opportunities for meaningful cross-cultural collaboration and learning. For Helvoigt, working alongside Ashesi students offered valuable perspectives on community-based problem-solving. 

“We learned a lot from each other, especially in terms of reaching out and connecting with stakeholders,” Helvoigt shared. “They helped us navigate the cultural nuances that come with stakeholder engagement.” 

Her colleague, Paige Nicely, an Education and Mathematics major, shared a similar experience. “This opportunity allowed me to experience education systems outside the context I’ve always known, and I must say that I have learned a lot,” she said. 

Hosted by Ashesi University for the second time, the Ashesi Summer Research Consulting Internship Program is modeled after the College of Wooster’s Applied Methods and Research Experience (AMRE).  For about a decade, Ashesi students have participated in AMRE, collaborating with College of Wooster students on consulting projects. These engagements have included work with organizations such as General Electric and Schneider Electric. Through the Ashesi Summer Research Consulting Internship Program, that collaboration continues to create opportunities for students to strengthen their research skills while contributing to community development. 

When Jordyn Maywood visited the Berekusu Health Center, she didn’t expect how much it would change the way she thinks about her own field. At the Health Center, she observed first-hand how patients were dealing with water-related illnesses. “I saw how important it is to connect classroom learning with community engagement,” shared Maywood, a Biomedical Engineering student from the University of Waterloo. “The visit allowed me to better understand how what we learn in the classroom actually affects people’s lives.”  

Maywood was one of twelve students who spent a month at Ashesi University this year as part of a collaborative field course with the University of Waterloo, now in its second year. Made possible by the generosity of David and Linda Archer Cornfield and supported by Ashesi Foundation Canada, the course immersed students in Ghana’s Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) landscape; from community health centers to national infrastructure.

Through partnerships with WaterAidGhana, WASHKING, Aquaya, CEWEFIA, the Accra School of Hygiene and the Ghana Water Company Limited, students examined the environmental and public health pressures shaping water access across the country. They engaged directly with practitioners, challenged their assumptions, and began reflecting on solutions.

The insights from these visits carried into their work with Ashesi’s International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team. Focused on the informal e-waste recycling hub at Agbogbloshie, a suburb of Accra where open burning of electronics exposes residents to toxic chemicals, the team is researching synthetic biology as a cleaner method of extracting valuable metals like gold from electronic waste.

In a post on LinkedIn, Carol Liberty, an Environment and Business student from Waterloo, described the experiences as the “most formative” of her degree. On the iGEM Project, she contributed a PESTLE and SWOT analysis, while others in the visiting group developed a policy brief documenting the health, environmental, and socio-economic costs of current recycling practices.

“The frameworks I had studied looked different when applied across cultural contexts,” Liberty explained. “The addition of ethics as a standalone dimension of analysis, something I had never encountered in years of business coursework, reframed how I think about responsible consulting and cross-cultural collaboration entirely.”

Taken together, the experiences left Liberty with a conviction she carried home: “Problems do not disappear; they shift into other forms. The people absorbing those shifts most heavily are most often the ones excluded from the rooms where solutions are designed. True sustainability requires not just interdisciplinary thinking and systems approaches, but the humility to recognize whose knowledge and whose burden we are too often overlooking.”