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Africa

From entrepreneur to climate policy advocate

Kiara Wahnschafft started her first company at age 16. After her classmate passed away from a drunk driving accident, Wahnschafft couldn’t stop thinking about ways technology could have saved a life. With two other students, she built a prototype for a car key that works only after the driver passes a breathalyzer test. Wahnschafft went […]

Podcast: Energy connectivity in Africa

Vera Songwe, under-secretary-general and executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, on economic development and energy connectivity in Africa.  

MIT x TAU AFRICA WEBINAR SERIES

The Center for International Studies (CIS) has partnered with the newly launched TRUE Africa University (TAU) to host a webinar series focusing on various aspects of sustainable development in Africa. Thursdays at NOON ET, starting on March 4, TAU founder, MIT alumnus, and CIS research affiliate Claude Grunitzky, will interview the thinkers, shapers and doers who he sees […]

A new goal for soccer: Improving attitudes toward refugees

Across the globe, 26 million people have been displaced from their home countries by civil war, drought, political persecution, and other crises. At the same, attitudes against refugees are hardening in many countries; a 2018 survey found that 40 percent of Kenyans have heard that refugees are a security threat, and 45 percent don’t think […]

Hair and identity

Sefa Yakpo has always been interested in the question of the beauty standards that shape the lives of women of African descent. Growing up in Ghana, Yakpo recalls going with her mother every Sunday to the salon to watch her mother have her hair done. The posters and pictures in hair product commercials showed women […]