London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Gerald Abila, Founder & Executive Director of BarefootLaw, Alloysius Attah, Co-Founder & CEO of Farmerline and Tonee Ndungu, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Kytabu will speak on 'Innovation for Social Change: A View from Africa'.

Join us for a discussion with Professor Peter Piot and three award-winning technology entrepreneurs who are driving social change and impact in Africa. The entrepreneurs, who are recipients of the King Baudouin African Development Prize, will share their innovative solutions to improve the lives of local communities through access to knowledge and information in the fields of law, agriculture and education.

Speakers include:

Gerald Abila, Founder & Executive Director of BarefootLaw (Uganda)

In Uganda, millions do not have access to proper legal services, as the vast majority of licensed lawyers are based in Kampala. BarefootLaw, East Africa’s first online legal service, changes this narrative by providing free legal advice and support to those who need it most, enabling them to understand and defend their basic rights. 

Alloysius Attah, Co-Founder & CEO of Farmerline (Ghana)

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of African economies. Working across West Africa, Farmerline provides 200,000 farmers with access to weather forecasts, market information and farming techniques - all of this through text and voice messages in local languages. Platform users have seen their revenue grow by 50%. 

Tonee Ndungu, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Kytabu (Kenya)

The lack of textbooks is one of the main challenges facing Africa’s education systems. In an effort to democratize the sector, Kytabu made the entire Kenyan educational curriculum accessible online. Its innovative app now provides 11 million students in Kenya with a low-cost solution to access the textbooks of their choice.

The event will be moderated by Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and will be streamed live here.