Top 10 finalists for the Africa Education Medal

STEAMLabs Africa’s Executive Director, Felix Malombe, is one of the two Kenyans that have been named as Top 10 finalists for the new Africa Educational Medal. The other one is Zizi Afrique Foundation’s Director John Mugo.

The New Africa Education Medal has been launched by T4 Education in collaboration with HP and Intel. Malombe and Mugo join eight other outstanding individuals from across Africa including H.E Jakaya Kikwete, former President of Tanzania and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education.

The Africa Education Medal was founded to recognize the tireless work of those who are transforming education across the continent – to celebrate the stories of thise who have lit the spark of change so others will be inspired to take up the torch.

Felix Malombe, is Executive Director of STEAMLabs Africa, which trains students and educators on STEM education, the Sustainable Development Goals, environmental sustainability, and ICT integration in education. He is a teacher at Crawford International School who has led his school to win an award for the Best STEM School in Kenya and become a Microsoft Showcase school in Africa. Malombe is a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, Trainer and Fellow who has trained over 4,000 teachers since 2018. He is a founding member of the Google Educator Group (GEG) – Kenya.

As part of his work at STEAMLabs Africa, Malombe is a Microsoft Global Training Partner. He has been training Kenyan educators since the first days of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first sessions in May 2020, Felix carried out seven weekly webinars dubbed Remote Learning Methodologies (RLM) to train over 500 teachers in Kenya on effective pedagogical practices using Microsoft Teams.

STEAMLabs Africa is part of the 44 international organisations in the Scratch Education Collaborative and has trained over 2,000 educators, empowering them to develop skills in equitable coding with scratch and digital citizenship. He facilitates digital citizenship sessions for learners, educators and parents. He is a frequent commentator in the media.

Malombe is passionate about closing gender gaps and as part of Africa Code Week, his organisation trained 1,000 teachers to code, half of them women. This impacted around 31,000 learners – 60% of whom are girls, helping to bridge the gender divide in coding. STEAMLabs has also trained around 600 teachers on how to work with Micro: bit to develop digital skills for students and educators in Kenya as part of a programme targeting underprivileged students and girls.

For World Largest Generation Earthshot, STEAMLabs trained educators and learners on environmental sustainability using design thinking to ensure that students develop the concept of problem solving and 21st century skills.

John Mugo, on the other hand, is Executive Director of Zizi Afrique Foundation, a not-for-profit committed to improving learning outcomes for the children and young people who are furthest behind by nurturing skills for learning, living, and working. The organisation has grown rapidly to help improve the learning outcomes of more than 30,000 children and provide skills training opportunities to more than 1,000 young people facing extreme adversities. Mugo is an education reform advisor to the Kenya Institute of Special Education, Ministry of Education and other institutions.

The Top 10 finalists for the Africa Education Medal are:

H.E. Jakaya Kikwete, former President of Tanzania and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education
Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town, South Africa
Basuti Bolo, Founder and CEO of GoToSpace, in Botswana
Cyrille Nkontchou, Founder and Chairman of Enko Education, in Ivory Coast
Felix Malombe, Executive Director of STEAM Labs Africa, in Kenya
John Mugo, Executive Director of Zizi Afrique Foundation, in Kenya
Folawe Omikunle, Chief Executive Officer of Teach For Nigeria
Jide Martin, Founder and CEO of Comic Republic, in Nigeria
Musu Bakoto Sawo, National Coordinator of Think Young Women, in Gambia
Noella Coursaris Musunka, Founder and CEO of the Georges Malaika Foundation, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nominations for the Africa Education Medal opened in April 2022 for individuals working to improve pre-kindergarten, K-12, vocational and university education who are either educators, school administrators, civil society leaders, public servants, government officials, political leaders, technologists, or innovators.

The winner of the Africa Education Medal will be announced in September. Finalists will be assessed by a Jury comprising prominent individuals based on rigorous criteria.