| SUF Joins HBS Africa Business Conference |
For a second year in a row, Tom Pyle, Executive Director of Strathmore University Foundation, was a featured panellist at the annual Harvard Business School Africa Business Conference, 'Beyond Natural Resources: Developing Africa's Natural Advantages', held on the HBS campus in Boston on February 11 to 13, 2005. The conference, attended by over 700 African students and professionals from as far as California and London, was sponsored by the Harvard Business School African Students Association. The topic of Tom's panel was "Education in Africa: Investing in Human Capital". Joining Tom were fellow panellists Professor Suzanne Grant Lewis of Harvard's Graduate School of Education, Ms Egbe Osifo-Dawodu, Sector Manager for Human Development Programmes of the World Bank, and Mr Patrick G. Awuah, Jr., Founder and President of Ashesi University in Ghana. The moderator was Professor Kai-Ming Cheng of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Tom's presentation centred on Strathmore University's efforts to increase qualified student access by way of private sector student loan financing. A former project finance banker, Tom described a scheme being developed by Strathmore University Foundation to create a private sector student loan programme in a public-private partnership with local commercial banks in Kenya, bilateral agencies such as USAID and DfID, and multilateral entities like IFC, all working with Strathmore. Tom's presentation and the entire educational panel session were attended by over 90 delegates. There were several Strathmore graduates in attendance as well, including Dennis Koome Imathiu (Harvard), Grace Macharia, Linda Gitari (Mt. Holyoke), Kemunto Mokaya (Yale), Ateo Ulzen Appiah (MIT), David B. Mwangi, Susan Wanjau (UMass), and Festo Koiri. Also attending was former Strathmore teacher, Raphael Njoroge, now at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. |
