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2010 Tutu Fellow Bright Simons is one of four people selected by the Tallberg Foundation as a 2017 Tallberg Global Leadership laureate. The Tallberg Foundation was founded in 1981 to address the systemic challenges resulting from an increasingly globalised world.  The foundation described Bright Simons as the founder of mPedigree and a technologist and social innovator from Ghana known for his combination of business with social activism and knowledge-driven public advocacy for improved governance at multiple levels of society.

2012 Tutu Fellow Swaady Martin has published a children's book titled Malaika and the Angel.  The book series is a collection of spiritual tales, suitable for children of all ages, from five onwards. For younger children, beautiful watercolor illustrations are the gateway to the stories that parents can use to their own imagination. The title character, Malaika, is a normal young girl who is open to the reality of the spiritual world. When Rafiki, her guardian angel, makes its presence known, she is bursting with questions. The stories provide a memorable trip with Rafiki, where Malaika is introduced to new experiences that will change her life forever.

Statement on the great stain of slavery in Libya from the Archbishop Tutu Fellows to African Heads of State; the international private sector civil society; and, multilateral organisations.

Your Excellencies; leaders of private sector and civil society organisations; policy makers at the United Nations and the African Union; and, fellow Africans, slavery in Libya is a crime against humanity and immediate action is required by all stakeholders, including African governments, to put an end to this outrageous practice and hold responsible parties accountable.

There are three Great Stains on humanity; War, Genocide and Slavery.

For millions in Zimbabwe born since liberation, the ZANU-PF government led by 93-year-old Robert Mugabe is the only government they have known. So the removal of President Mugabe from power by the military this month has been a watershed moment.  With long-time government insider Emmerson Mnangagwa now the new President, Zimbabwe is wondering if the country will continue the trajectory it has held under ZANU-PF, or if the country will chart a new positive course. 

The second essay written by the 2017 Tutu Fellows we are publishing is a brilliantly written piece by Rori Tshabalala. Rori posits that in spite of a checkered and painful past, Africa still preserves its history not as a past to be learnt from but as a persistent present to be tolerated, reinforced, normalized and passed on to future generations. He suggests that rather than repeating and emotionalising the past we need to summon the courage to learn the painful history but equip the people with the skills and knowledge to capture the promise and potential of the future so they may never suffer the humiliation that their forebears suffered.

2017 Tutu Fellow Hema Vallabh has been recognised at this year's Fortune: Most Powerful Women in Business for 2017 and presented with the Fortune/Goldman Sachs Global Leader's Award. The event took place in Washington, DC on 10 October.  Fortune's Most Powerful Woman founder Pattie Sellers presented her with the award. 

This year, the excesses of gender inequality has rocked Fox News, Uber, and the Weinstein Company, in which powerful men have taken advantage of women or created workplaces hostile to gender equality.  So for Forbes to feature 2014 Tutu Fellow Samuel Mensah - along with three other men in South Africa - a country hardly known for gender equality in business, says something of their credibilty.  Mensah is the co-founder of the leading African fashion brand, Kisua.

A final celebratory dinner hosted by Investec in their London offices on 15th September brought to an end a six-month tumultuous journey of learning, of exploration, of self-reflection and establishing bonds of friendship and collaboration amongst 28 of Africa’s highest-potential emerging leaders, that will pertain across thousands of kilometres and for many many years. The Tutu Fellowship awards were presented at the dinner to those who had met the exacting standards required by the Fellowship and the 2017 class of newly-awarded Tutu Fellows dispersed to fulfil their potential and commitment as young leaders to make Africa a better place for all to live in.

Two Tutu Fellows are collaborating on a pioneering and ambitious agribusiness training programme.  They hatched the idea last year, when 2015 Fellow Martin Mbaya and 2013 Fellow Nuradin Osman got chatting at the 10-year celebration of the Tutu Leadership Fellowship at Nirox Foundation Park.  The new AGCO agribusiness qualification will develop skills, leadership and strategic expertise in youth to support the African agricultural sector at a time when farmers are being asked to do more with less.

Each of the 2017 Tutu Fellows were required to submit an essay on leadership in Africa. There were a number of excellent essays written, as can be expected from a specially-selected group of Africa’s finest emerging leaders. This essay by Sam Ngcolomba is the first of several we will publish over the next few months. She starts with an amazing story of courage and leadership by a young girl, and goes on to challenge the foundations of established leadership on the continent.

There was a time when Africa was the destination of investment from external investors for a variety of reasons. The sluggish global economy and a variety of other factors make that kind of investment landscape one that can no longer be counted on, and it has had a negative impact on a number of African country's economies. But 2010 Tutu Fellow Lerato Mataboge writes that the reduced external investment in Africa may provide the pain that African countries need to reimagine the way in which they do business with each other. 

There is no such thing, of course, as a 'grey rhino'.  2009 Tutu Fellow James Mwangi writes that he came across the the term in a piece on business in China and that he found it instructive.  In the piece, a grey rhino was analogous to highly probable, high-impact threats that people should see coming, but don't.  Writing about the threat of 'grey rhinos' in Africa for African Business, he looks at some of the factors that should be obvious to governments across the continent and which they have failed to address. 

Mo Ibrahim addressed the 2017 Tutu Fellows in the UK during their second workshop, covering some of the more vexing questions facing African leaders today.  The Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which he leads, was established in 2006 to improve governance and leadership in Africa. Ibrahim spoke on leadership challenges in Africa and on opportunities and challenges facing the private sector.

2017 Tutu Fellow Natalie Jabangwe was a panelist in a high-level panel discussion on Innovation and technology at the United Nations General Assembly on 18 September.  The discussion formed part of the UN's attention to a range of Sustainable Development Goals that it hopes to see implemented by 2030. The goals include inroads into poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, clean energy, responsible consumption and others. Innovation and technology are seen as mechanisms by which the goals can be reached.

Back in June of this year, we shared news of how two Fellows were selected to participate in the final one thousand at UNLEASH 2017.  One of them, Jon Kornik, led the team that won the water solutions' challenge.  UNLEASH sets up global innovation labs and gathers some of the top minds of a generation in a kind of open source solution based approach to subject themes such as water, food, sustainable consumption and others.