News

Linus Unah is a UC Berkeley alumnus with the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program who obtained a master's  degree in journalism. Read here about his exciting career advancing wildlife conservation with Wild Africa Fund.

Ravina and Rushika Pattni are two exceptional women making a difference in Tanzania and beyond on the African continent. Ravina is also a former Mastercard Foundation Scholar from UC Berkeley. Read about the journies and impactful work of these two transformative leaders here.

The International House at UC Berkeley is commemorating Black History Month through a YouTube video series. In consists of clips from residents, including many Mastercard Foundation Scholars, as well as alumni interviews by Scholar and I-House Global Community Ambassador, Excellence Joshua. More videos are added to the playlist throughout the month of February.

This Blum Center feature focuses on Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alum, Patricia Quaye (Development Engineering, '22) and her project, SHE 4 Change, which works with rural women in Ghana to break cycles of poverty through fashion and expanded markets. Quaye has further developed her project as a recipient of Mastercard Foundation Alumni Scholars Impact Award, powered by the Blum Center's Big Ideas Contest

Scholar Alum, Carlos Mureithi ('19, Journalism), has joined AP (Associated Press) as their Africa climate correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya. His first story for AP was on the Three Basins Summit to protect largest tropical forest basins that took place in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.  

The UC Berkeley Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program supported this collaboration by UC Berkeley & University of Nairobi Collaboration on a six-week “Virtual Global Innovation Workshop” on biomedical equipment design for low-resource settings through a Faculty Seed Grant. Scholar Alum, Cecil Chikezie, M.Eng/2022, was the project manager of the workshop.

Via a collaboration with the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology and Ashesi University in Ghana, the Center for African Studies via the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, is able to bring five Ashesi undergraduate innovators to UC Berkeley. The students include Abigail Efua Tetteh (Ghana), Judercio Nhauche (Mozambique), Mcebo Vincent Hlanze (Eswatini), Sandra Nettey (Ghana), and Styve Zeumo Lekane (Cameroon).

Hon. Patricie Uwase ('15, Civil and Environmental Engineering), Rwandan Minister of State for Infrastructure, provides insights on her journey at the Mastercard Foundations Scholars@10 Baobab Summit that took place in Kigali September 15th to 17th, 2022.

Are you a prospective master's student from Sub-Saharan Africa? Do you know someone who is? This year, we took part in the Berkeley Graduate Diversity Admissions Fair, October 17 – 21, 2022. Our session was on Tuesday, October 18 at 9:00 am PST (California time) / 4pm WAT / 7 pm EAT.

If you missed the session, you can view the video recording.

The tenth anniversary of the Scholars Program at UC Berkeley was one of several anniversaries featured in a back-to-school story, "No shortage of good news as fall semester 2022 begins at UC Berkeley" published by Berkeley Public Affairs. Scroll to near the end (85%) for the section on the Scholars Program. Alumni, such as Patricie Uwase, Vicentia Gyau and Abraham Martei Martey are featured.

Global Custodians Academy graduated it first class on 18 December 2021. The Academy was founded by two Scholar alums, Vicentia Gyau and Abraham Martey (Global Studies, 2019).

Jumba, a B2B construction technology platform launched in April 2022 and co-founded by UC Berkeley alum and Scholar ('15, City and Regional Planning) Kagure Wamunyu (CEO) and Miano Njoka (CTO) receives $1 million in pre-seed-funding.

Vivian Omondi, a Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program recipient in the Master of Information Management and Systems program and part of the graduating class of 2022 shares her story that got her to the stage.

"Giving back: Molly Nantongo (MSW '23) and Ntongo Skills4Peace" First-year MSW student Molly Nantongo was recently awarded a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant for her project, Ntongo Skills4Peace. 

Article in the Chronicle (Zimbabwe), From Gwabalanda to world's top tech firms, Twitter, features Mastercard Foundation Scholar Eric Khumalo, '20, CogSci. See the Front page of the print version.

In this article, MEng student and scholarship recipient, Cecil Chikezie, speaks about what it means to be a Mastercard Foundation Scholar and his long term bio-engineering goals of supporting the financial stability and respiratory health of Kenyan communities.  Read the full Berkeley Master of Engineering article.  

Barbara Mensah had studied education, founded her own organization to empower rural girls, and worked at a university in Ghana. But wanting to take the next step in her education and career, she had applied and been accepted to UC Berkeley’s first cohort of the brand-new Master of Development Engineering (M.DevEng) program, housed at the Blum Center.

Urban economies in growing cities, such as Nairobi, rely partly on the contribution of tradespeople like plumbers, electricians, and painters. Many live in informal, low-income settlements, far from the rest of the city's economy, giving rise to an opportunity mismatch for customers interested in hiring these talented artisans. Sarah Lebu, and two other Mastercard Foundation Scholars Kwinoja Kapiteni (Tanzania) and Chidi Uwaeme (Nigeria) formed KaziTu to fill this gap.