As part of the preparation process for the World Development Report (WDR) 2019, the team ran a competition for university and college students. Students were asked to propose real life examples of governments, cities, firms, individuals, or any other actor preparing for and taking advantage of opportunities created by technology and the future of work. The transparent and open nature of the report drafting process, whereby the latest drafts were uploaded to the website every Friday, allowed competition participants to propose examples that best highlight the issues discussed.
From over 600 entries that were received, we are pleased to announce Jessica Craig (United Kingdom), Justice Essuman (Ghana), and Kennedy Ogola (Kenya) as joint winners of the competition. Short biographies on each as well as their winning entries are available below.
Jessica Craig is a final-year undergraduate student of International Relations and Modern History at the University of St Andrews, in her native Scotland. Jessica’s academic interests lie in the study of peace and security and human rights. At present, her research focusses on gender and security. Jessica intends to pursue a master’s degree in international security and is interested in pursuing a career in post-conflict reconstruction, global development or domestic policy-making in the future.
In addition to her studies, Jessica is a Campus Brand Ambassador of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom for 2018-2019. She writes for Protocol, the student human rights publication at the University of St Andrews, and the St Andrews Foreign Affairs Review. She is also a member of the coordinating team for the 2019 UNICEF On Campus St Andrews Symposium event. Jessica enjoys travelling, running and practicing yoga in her free time.
Read Jessica’s winning entry (extended) on human capital investments in Scotland.
Kennedy Ogolla is a postgraduate student pursuing MSc. in Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Diagnosis at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. He graduated with a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine Degree (B.V.M) from the University of Nairobi in 2015. He is passionate about demand-driven research especially those aimed at making the world food secure (SDG2) and preserving environment (SDG15), two goals that often conflict. As part of his research project, he established the most effective drugs for control of rabbit coccidiosis in Kenya. This was informed by the need to reduce the huge economic losses arising from coccidiosis that affect the blossoming rabbit industry in Kenya. He has also participated in community-engagement programs aimed at promoting rabbit and fish farming through effective control of diseases and predators in Kiambu, Kirinyaga and Nyeri counties. Kennedy is interested in innovative social entrepreneurship as well and is a co-founder of Biofit Agritec Enterprises, a youth-owned company that manufactures animal feeds from the invasive water hyacinth weed. He is currently a research intern at Biotechnology Research Institute, KALRO. His hobbies are reading and traveling.
Read Kennedy’s winning entry (extended) on the Digital Literacy Programme in Kenya.
Justice Valentine Essuman is a senior at Ashesi University and a MasterCard Scholar majoring in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. He is the co-founder of ThinkWest, an educational initiative equipping young minds with knowledge and technological skills. In 2017, Justice, a member of Synthetic Biology team represented Ghana in the 2017 International Genetics Engineered Machine (IGEM) competition in Boston. He has served as a tutor in the Robotics Inspired Science Education (RISE) program and volunteered for the MISE Foundation in Ghana. Prior to his studies at Ashesi University, he served as the president of the Robotics society in high school, at St. Augustine's College, where he led his team to represent Ghana in the World Robotics Olympiad (WRO) in 2013. He has engaged in several projects including the Ashesi-Dartmouth Engineering Project and the Ashesi Goes Solar Project. In his free time, he enjoys assisting his friends with their projects or composing music with his trumpet. Justice is a charismatic young man who is passionate about everything engineering-related and hopes to help Africa garner the right knowledge and technological capacities to enable the continent to embrace the future.
Read Justice’s winning entry (extended) on startup initiatives.
