Hello friends, partners, and supporters,
I write to you with excitement and a childlike sense of possibility, as we move into a new decade and set our sights on even bigger goals for Ubongo. There are now over 500 million kids in Sub-Saharan Africa, and we are more determined than ever to empower and equip them to build a brighter future for themselves and this amazing continent.
We’re setting ambitious goals, to make effective edutainment freely available to kids in all countries of Sub-Saharan Africa over the next 5 years, and scale to have reached and impacted over 60 million kids by 2025. Our vision is for a new generation of kids in Africa who have grown up with Ubongo edutainment to be more equipped with the education, critical skills, and positive mindsets to change their own lives and communities for the better. We believe that if we can support small but transformational changes in skills and mindsets for a critical mass of kids in Africa, that will lay the foundation for true and sustainable systems change on the continent. We have a clear vision, but we still have much to learn as we strive to get there. We’ll need to apply the same innovative and persistently optimistic mindset that we encourage in our learners, to our own work, as we find our way to that vision.
For this next stage of growth, we need to rethink what role each of us Ubongoers can play to best achieve that vision. I believe that I can best contribute to our long term growth by focusing on my strengths in design, innovation and linking research to practice.
So I am excited to announce that we are looking for a visionary CEO who can lead us through Ubongo’s next stage of growth and beyond. While I’ve been able to draw on my strengths as a product-builder to launch shows and services that families across Africa love, we now need an organization-builder who can help us to build a strong and sustainable Pan-African Ubongo, and develop the partnerships with innovators, funders and governments that we need for sustained impact.
I will stay at Ubongo and transition into the role of Chief Innovation Officer, where I can continue to apply my skills and passion for storytelling and innovation to achieve our mission. I’ll focus on embedding our unique Ubongo DNA of fun learning into all we do. Those of you who know me well, know that I’m most in my element when in the “ideas room” dreaming up new stories and concepts with our team, or in the field in the testing those concepts with our users, or in the murkiness of deep-diving our stickiest and weirdest challenges. I’m excited to use these strengths to support Ubongo to achieve our big, hairy, audacious goal of bringing fun learning to ALL kids in Africa.
We value you as supporters and thought partners, and we’re happy to share this news with you and collaborate with you as we navigate this transition to impact at scale. We are beginning a search for the right candidate, and ask you to reach out through your networks to help us find a truly exceptional CEO who can lead us through this next stage in our journey, and personifies our Ubongo values of Ubunifu, Ujasiri, Ustahimilivu, and Utu.
We recognize that these things take time, and we’re planning for an extended timeline to find and onboard the right candidate, followed by a transition and handover period, to set our new leader and Ubongo up for long term success!
I also encourage you to reach out to me if you have any questions or ideas about this… or just to chat and catch up. It’s been a joy to share this Ubongo journey with you, and I’m looking forward to many more years of growth and fun learning!
Okay, now back to work!
– Nisha
