A film dedicated to telling the story of the Chibok girls kidnapped from their school by Boko Haram is being premiered at the Sundance film festival this month. Waiting for Hassana tells the story of the kidnapping through the eyes of one of the girls - named Jessica - who escaped from Boko Haram. 2015 Tutu Fellow Uzodinma Iweala produced the documentary after being encouraged to do so by his mother.  Waiting for Hassana is the first Nigerian production ever selected to debut at the prestigious international film festival.

2016 Tutu Fellow Nhlanhla Dlamini has been included in the Mail & Guardian's 2016 annual edition of Young South Africans. The prestigious list, now in its 11th year, features 200 notable South Africans under the age of 35.  The list includes categories such as Arts & Culture, Education, Environment, Politics & Government, and the category in which Nhlanhla was selected, Business and Law.  This year, the M&G received more than 1,000 nominations for inclusion on the list.

Nhlanhla is quoted by the publication as saying that a goal for the company he started, the Maneli Group, is to address some of the biggest challenges the world is currently grappling with, including food security and sustainable farming.  Fellows on previous editions of the list include Zukie Siyotula, Craig Wing, Catherine Constantinides, and Gareth Morgan.

You can take a look at the entire list on the Mail & Guardian.

The CNN International Edition segment that features African Start-ups has interviewed Tutu Fellow Swaady Martin, the founder of Yswara Teas.  Africa is one of the top exporters of tea in the world, but none of the top three tea companies are African.  Yswara was started in 2012 and Martin set about changing perceptions about the quality of African teas, which is better known for its low-quality teas.  Her company currently exports 27 varieties of high-quality premium tea to 16 countries. 

2014 Tutu Fellow Ada Osakwe has been asked by the President of the African Development Bank Group, Dr Akin Adesina, to serve on a 12-member Presidential Youth Advisory Group (PYAG). The members of the group will advise the President and the Bank on innovative ways for rolling out the bank's Jobs for Youth in Africa Initiative, which aims to create 25 million jobs and equip 50 million youths with skills in Africa by 2025.

The phenomenon of Donald Trump winning the United States presidential elections is tackled by Liberian academic and activist Robtel Neajai Pailey in an article for New African magazine - the cover of which is shown above - in her column Random Acts of Activism.  The 2010 Tutu Fellow examines the contentious US elections and its outcome in her piece Africa's lessons for Trump's America.  It begins by arguing that Trump's victory has exposed the emperor's nakedness and that Africa has much to teach Americans dismayed by the outcome of their election.

In the United States, she says that the least-qualified candidate of all time beat the most qualified through a deeply flawed electoral college system after an election marked by hate speech and mysogynistic vitriol.  By comparison, in her country, Liberia, a highly qualified septuagenarian, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, beat the hugely popular football star-turned-politican George Weah in a high-stakes runoff. With a 70% voter turnout in Liberia versus 56% in the US, Pailey says that the witty observation by Ghanaian scholar Dr. Takyiwaa Manuh was accurate when she encouraged Americans to consult Africa on 'how to trump your Trump.'

The full article can be read on page 28 of the January edition of New African.

The CEO of the African Leadership Institute, Jackie Chimhanzi, has been appointed to the Board of ADvTECH.  The Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed holding company is a leading private sector education organization. It owns and operates schools, colleges, and academies, as well as career placement and HR companies and headhunters.  Dr. Chimhanzi's appointment is as an independent non-executive director, with effect from 1 January 2017.

ADvTECH Board Chair Chris Boulle said that he was pleased that Jackie had agreed to join the ADvTECH Board. He says she has exceptional educational and business insight which will be of significant benefit to ADvTECH's discussions and decision-making.

ADvTECH is one of the largest diversified education, training and placement groups in South Africa. The education division offers education from pre-primary to diploma, degree and post-graduate levels, including adult basic education and training. It has concentrations in the technology, human resource, industrial and manufacturing sectors.

The announcement by the holding company can be read on their website.

2015 Tutu Fellow Kopano Matlwa has been included on a list of South African black women writers considered among the most influential in the country by okayafrica's international edition.  The list includes authors like Miriam Tlali, who's semi-autobiographical work Muriel at Metropolitan was banned in 1975 by the Apartheid National Party government at the time, and Sindiwe Magona. Magona's most recent novel, Beauty's Gift in 2008 looks at the stigma around HIV/AIDS in South Africa. 

A not-for-profit organization focused on empowering African girls through education, training, and mentoring in the STEM fields founded by 2014 Tutu Fellow Lade Araba has been recognised by Google for the work it has been doing.  Google announced that the Visiola Foundation would receive a 2016 Google RISE Award for its efforts to increase access to computer science  education for youth.

The Google RISE Awards supports informal education organizations around the world that promote computer science for K-12/pre-university age youth.

2013 Tutu Fellow Nuradin Osman has been promoted to Vice President and General Manager for Africa at AGCO, the third-largest global manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment. His promotion is part of a restructuring at the company to realign its regional structure with its on-the-ground presence in Africa as well as to further expand the company's operations on the continent.

Osman's steady rise in the ranks belies his difficult beginning.  A Somali, Osman's family lost everything twice due to famine and civil war, prompting him to walk across his country and through Ethiopia and Kenya before arriving in Holland in 1992 aged 17. See video below.

2015 Tutu Fellow Kopano Matlwa is releasing her third novel, titled Period Pain.  Matlwa, who is a medical doctor, is the author of Coconut, which sold 25,000 copies. The award-winning novel established her as one of South Africa's most vibrant young writers.  It also garnered a European Union Literary Award in 2007.  She followed it up with Spilt Milk, which won the Wole Soyinka Prize for literature in 2010.

Period Pain is about the heartache and confusion experienced by so many South Africans facing the difficulties of xenophobia, rape, corruption and crime set against the backdrop of the nation's ailing public health system.

2007 Tutu Fellow Edward Mabaya has been elected president of the African Association of Agricultural Economists at the association’s fifth triennial conference at the U.N. Conference Centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Mabaya is the associate director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development and a senior research associate at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. His research and outreach work focuses on agricultural development and food security in Africa.

2012 Tutu Fellow Dr. Andrew Mude has won the 2016 Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application.  He and his team are also receiving a USAID award for scientific excellence.  The recognition is for their work developing the innovative use of satellite technology and community outreach to develop livestock insurance for vulnerable herding communities in the Horn of Africa.  The program uses satellite data to help protect livestock herding communities in the Horn from the devastating effects of drought. 

A 2016 Tutu Fellow, Success Masra, recently was invited to the White House as part of a group of young leaders. It followed the launch of a compilation book on Nelson Mandela for which he was the lead author.  The book, originally published in French, is titled Les Héritiers de Madiba (The Rainbow Heirs of Madiba).  From there, Masra went on to Paris to defend his PhD on the role of development financial institutions in promoting renewable energy. 

A team of the 2016 Fellows has put together a powerful video in which they look at Africa today and where it may be headed. The group comprises Sureka Asbury, Peter Biar Ajak, Raqiya Yusuf Ibrahim, Andre Hilton Ross, Tshepo Ditshengo, Dorothy Ghettuba, Cumeshan Moodliar and Rinos Mautsa.

They argue that Africa's current relative well-being rests on China's growth, but that corruption and weak governmental institutions prevent the continent from reaching its full potential. In their exposition, which pulls no punches, they outline three scenarios.

South Africa has seen a series of protests at a girls' school prompted by enforcement of the dress code, which impacted students who wanted to be able to wear afro hairstyles. In a piece for the BBC, Nigerian novelist and writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani questions whether a South African school's hair rules really were racist.

She recalled her days as a student at one of Nigeria's most prestigious boarding schools for girls where rules were rigidly enforced and falling foul of them could result in a shaven head.