Hello friends!
I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy! It’s been a long time since we’ve gotten to see many of you, but I’m grateful for these other ways we can stay connected in the digital age!
Co-founding and leading Ubongo as CEO over the past 9 years has been the greatest adventure of my life… from making our first test videos with kids in Tanzania in 2012 to reaching an audience of over 27 million kids with beloved edutainment in 2021. I’ve been able to draw upon my skills as a product-builder, writer and innovator to develop and scale our products, alongside our incredible team of sixty Ubongoers, to reach where we are today. But to achieve our big hairy audacious goal of bringing quality, localized edutainment to all kids in Africa, we need the visionary leadership of an organization-builder who can sustainably nurture and grow Ubongo, our team and our impact. And I’m excited to say: we’ve found her!
I am delighted to introduce Mwasi Wilmore as Ubongo’s new global CEO! I’m so grateful for the leadership, passion, empathy, business acumen, strategic thinking and all-in commitment that Mwasi is bringing to Ubongo!
Mwasi is half Tanzanian and half American, and she’s lived in several countries across Africa. She has degrees in Finance and Banking, as well as International Management. She has global experience in strategy, transformation and growth for nonprofits, startups, SME’s and fortune 100 companies. She started her career at Deloitte, where she worked with financial institutions and government sanctioned entities designing and implementing large scale, geographically distributed projects with high economic, capital and regulatory impact. She then moved back to Tanzania, where she co-founded a 4G company, which she helped pilot and then sold to a mobile network.
Mwasi has had a lifelong passion for education, and felt a strong pull to transition from the corporate space to working in education. In 2018, she joined and led Camara Education Tanzania (an education technology social enterprise) as their CEO for two years, where she first got to know Ubongo through the Discover Learning Project. She’s been a fan ever since, and is now delighted to become part of the team. The only person who may be more delighted is her daughter, a Happy Hippo superfan!
Mwasi and I will be working together for the next few months to complete the leadership transition. Then, after a bit of time off, I hope to return in an innovation-focused role where I can use my creative energy to best support Ubongo, our team and the kids we serve!
I’m deeply grateful to all of you as supporters, partners and friends. We wouldn’t be where we are without you, and I hope that you will give Mwasi the same unerring support that you’ve given to me through the ups and downs of the past 9 years! Please keep reading below and check out our 2021 Annual Report to hear from our incredible team on the progress we made last year, and hear from Mwasi about our big dreams for the future!
With utu and upendo,
Nisha
UBONGO 2021 ANNUAL REPORT
Throughout the years, we’ve documented and shared our progress and learnings with you via newsletters, case studies, workshops and reports. So, for this year’s annual report, we have decided to focus on sharing stories of collaboration and growth that will hopefully connect you with our community and bring joy and magic to your day!
1. Collaboration has always been part of our DNA
We collaborate with kids in every stage of our innovation; from research and content-creation, to community building and growth. We collaborate with caregivers, teachers, development organizations, corporates, NGOs, governments, researchers, community-based-organizations, and advocates to reach and influence the lives of children. Collaborations with our amazing partner ecosystem have enabled us to scale our impact and reach over 24 million families with transformative educational content.
2. And as we all know, collaboration leads to growth.
Since our founding in 2013, we have grown from a small Tanzanian grassroots startup to a Pan-African non-profit and the market leader in African edutainment. We started with a single product (our Ubongo Kids interactive TV show) to multiple multi-platform brands and far too many products to list! We’ve brought together people of different backgrounds, ideas and experiences to grow an industry leading Pan-African team of Ubongoers (our loving nickname for people who work at Ubongo) to spearhead a movement to create change for kids. We’ve learned so much along the way about how to engage kids in learning through quality, effective, localized edutainment, and we’ve made strong progress on better understanding the drivers and indicators of the impact of Ubongo’s work. This wouldn’t have been possible without the sheer dedication and commitment from all Ubongoers!
We’re looking forward to the future…. and all that we will do together in our journey to transform the lives of over 500 million kids in Africa!
Check out our Annual Report for magical and joyful stories of collaboration and growth from many Ubongoers (and hear from Mwasi for the first time!)
