About the Grace Onyango Foundation
At the heart of the Foundation’s mission, is to have African professionals lead the development of digital health interventions, which should be the next quantum leap in health care on the continent. We particularly promote female innovators.
The Foundation’s founding members include Great Lakes University of Kisumu (also acting as secretariat), Maseno University, Jomo Kenyatta University for Agriculture and Technology, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (all Kenyan); and North-West University, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University and Central University of Technology (all from South Africa).
The plan is to onboard institutions from additional countries to create a truly collaborative, pan-African platform and ecosystem.
You would take pleasure in the fact that we have 3 strong women on the board of the Foundation:
- Professor Hazel Mumbo, a public health specialist and Vice-Chancellor of Great Lakes University of Kisumu.
- Professor Leenta Grobler, an Associate Professor in Digitisation and Digital Economies at the North-West University Business School, a computer and electronic engineering professional and a renowned inventor in the digital health space.
- Dr Jane Aduda, a data and actuarial sciences specialist from Jomo Kenyatta University for Agriculture and Technology, whose focus is on public health data management.
- Mrs Pauline Okwacha, a formidable Kenyan business woman and representative of the Onyango Family.
The Board is led by Prof Khama Rogo, a retired World Bank public health specialist and currently advisor and health program manager in Kenya.
Speakers
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Honouring Ma Grace Onyango
As you may know, this Foundation is named for a regional icon in public service and politics, whom, at heart, always remained a teacher. Mama Grace Onyango, who is 98 years old this year, taught many of our parents to read and write, which enabled them to become internationally renowned doctors, teachers and politicians. She also had a career in politics which can be described as groundbreaking for women in Africa: she was the first female mayor of Kisumu, the first female member of parliament in post-independence Kenya and the first woman to act as speaker of the Kenyan parliament.