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2006 Tutu Fellow Kunyalala Maphisa has been appointed to the Council of the University of Cape Town. The appointment, which was made by the Minister of Higher Education, Bonginkosi (Blade) Nzimande, was made on 19 June 2020.  UCT Council members typically serve for four years.  Under the law governing the university, the Minister is entitled to appoint up to five people to the Council and the council's members recently began their 2020-2024 stint. 

The Council governs the university and its responsibilities include determining the mission, objectives, goals, strategies and policies for the progress of the institution. Kunyalala is a UCT alumnus, obtaining both her undergraduate and graduate degrees from the university.

2014 Tutu Fellow Ada Osakwe delivered the convocation address to the Kellogg School of Management Class of 2020. She became the first African to be given this honour, and the fourth black woman. She followed in the footsteps of outstanding Black Americans Edith Cooper, the Global Head of Human Capital at Goldman Sachs in 2017; Roslyn Brock, the Chairman Emeritus of the NAACP in 2012; and media titan Oprah Winfrey, in 2011.

Ada is an award-winning food entrepreneur and Founder of The Nuli Juice Company and an alumnus of the Kellogg School.

Five Tutu Fellows are named in the annually released Top 50 Disruptors by The Africa Report.  The report names the top 50 firebrands making waves on the continent, who are 'shaking up the status quo, asking uncomfortable questions, upending business models and fighting preconceptions' and who are 'transforming the African continent. The Fellows are Mitchell Elegbe, Oluseun Onigbinde, Bibi Bakare, Edwin Macharia and Ahmed Zahran. Of the exclusive list, 10% are Tutu Fellows. 

The publication ranks these exclusive 50 individuals based on three factors: innovation, disruption and heft.   According to The Africa Report, these criteria take into account how new the idea is, how big the change is and how many people are impacted.

2010 Tutu Fellow Eric Kacou has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Rwanda Development Board. Eric, along with three other new members, were appointed in May 2020.

The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) is a government body responsible for accelerating Rwanda’s economic development by enabling private sector growth. Headed by the Office of the President and governed by a Board of Directors made up of global entrepreneurs and experts, the RDB has a goal of transforming Rwanda into a dynamic global hub for business, investment, and innovation by fast tracking economic development.

The former Executive Director of the African Leadership Institute and 2007 Fellow, Tracey Webster, has been appointed CEO of the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust.  Prior to her appointment, she had been the CEO of The Enterpriseroom, a specialist consultancy that helps governments and companies develop and implement sustainable transformation programmes.  The aim of her company was to advance small and medium-sized-black-owned businesses as well as encourage youth employment. 

The Oppenheimer Memorial trust was founded in 1958 by the late Harry Oppenheimer to honour the memory of his father, Sir Ernest. It has had a long tradition of investing in education, public interest activities and other philanthropic causes in order to make a positive difference to South African society. In 2012, the Oppenheimer family donated an additional sum of R1 billion to the Trust.

As part of Project Pakati's goal to showcase the diversity and wealth of the work being done by young people across Africa, the Youth Organisations Directory profiles and aggregates African non-profits on a single, searchable platform. This makes it easy and accessible for donors, funders, and a greater pan-African audience to find these organisations. There are many young African leaders who have started organisations catering to the African youth market - the largest demographic segment on the continent - and one that is underserved. AFLI's pan-African directory seeks to help these organisations, by making it easier for them to find each other to partner and network.

The Nwunelis - a power Tutu Leadership Programme couple - made history by becoming the first couple to deliver the keynote address to Harvard Business School graduates.  The two, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli and Mezuo Nwuneli, delivered the address to the 2020 graduating class in May this year via a videolink as a result of COVID-19. Ndidi attended the Class of 2006, and Mezuo became a Tutu Fellow the following year. Both are also Harvard Business School graduates, which is where they met.  They join a storied list of keynote speakers - last year's was delivered by Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP and former Mayor of New York.

In their speech to the 2020 graduates, they recognised the unprecedented challenges that the graduates were facing in the midst of a global pandemic and the health, social and economic impact it would have. 

2013 Tutu Fellow Catherine Constantinides asks deeper questions about everyday active citizenry and what it looks like at the level of the individual and the community in a South African context. She gave her TEDx Talk, which she called Active Citizenship 101, at TEDx Waterfall Drive in May 2020.  Informed by her vast experience as a social activist on the African continent, as an international climate activist, and human rights defender, she challenges ideas about active citizenry and what it means to be agents of change. She begins her talk by saying the biggest mistake one can make is to do nothing because one can do only a little.

The talk was at a TEDx event and used the TED conference format but was independently organized by the local community.

On May 4th and May 5th, in partnership with the African Union Youth Envoy, Aya Chebbi, and her office, Project Pakati convened a workshop to discuss how to achieve greater youth inclusion in African governments.

This pan-African workshop served to consolidate knowledge from experts, policymakers and practitioners on youth inclusivity policy in governance on the continent. Across the two day workshop, we engaged with 16 such experts in depth and were able to assess, in a structured and rigorous way, the drivers and inhibitors of meaningful youth inclusion reform, the obstacles policymakers and politicians face in undertaking such reforms, and how best to implement progressive reforms for greater youth inclusion in governance on the continent.

Unlocking Africa's Business Potential by 2015 Tutu Fellow Landry Signé has recently been released and has had good feedback and editorial reviews. Landry makes the case that Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts.  The book examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment in Africa.  These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agri-processing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction.

He says Africa is one of the world's fastest growing regions and by 2030 will be home to nearly $1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion in consumer and business spending.  Landry is a prolific writer and thinker, having authored or co-authored more than 27 manuscripts, books, articles and book chapters, with several books dealing with Africa's economy. 

Two Tutu Fellows - Omoni Oboli and Jude Abaga - are collaborating on a movie called Namaste Wahala. Jude, a 2017 Tutu Fellow is a producer on the movie, while Omoni, a 2018 Fellow, is an insider of the Nigerian movie scene.

Namaste Wahala is at the intersection of bollywood and nollywood, featuring a cast drawn from both the Indian subcontinent and Africa. ' It is directed by businesswoman-turned-filmmaker, Hamisha Daryani Ahuja

In March 2020, the African Leadership Institute announced the Associates who had been selected for the 2020 Class of the Tutu Fellowship programme.  As has been the case with previous cohorts, the people selected were exceptional emerging African leaders. AFLI received more than 300 nominees of outstanding quality from 36 African countries, from which the cohort was selected. Before the class could begin, COVID intervened and the programme was deferred until conditions allowed for an in-person convening.

Since that initial announcement of the cohort was made, not all of the candidates were still able to participate in the programme. The names below represent the final cohort who begin the first workshop in the programme in South Africa next week.

It's been six months since the Youth Organisations Directory was launched by AFLI as part of Project Pakati's goal to showcase the work being done by youth-led and youth-serving organisations across Africa. The directory assists African NGO's be recognised and found. Because it aggregates these NGO's on a single, searchable platform, it makes it straightforward for donors, funders and the audiences these organisations serve to find them.

Since it was launched, more than 330 organisations have taken the opportunity to register and create entries for their organisations in the directory. At this point, most African countries are represented. As the directory has grown and become better known, it has been shared by those already listed on it. While entry submission rates were initially slow, submission rates have increased. On a single day towards the end of this month, 23 NGO's submitted entries.

Two Fellows, Aderonke Onadeko of the Class of 2006 and 2007 Fellow Mezuo Nwuneli have partnered together to launch Nourishing Africa, a hub for entrepreneurs to accelerate their work, connect with funders, markets, talent, and celebrate their successes.

It connects agtech and digital innovators to ensure that Africa nourishes itself and becomes a net exporter of food by 2050.  On the site, they explain the simple math: by 2050, 2.4 billion people will live in Africa. If they spend $1 a day on food, this represents a $876 billion annual market. If they spend $10, its an $8.76 trillion annual market. A key goal is to empower Africans to sustainably grow and supply this massive market, reaping the benefits of local jobs.

2014 Fellow Zeinab Camara has run for office for her first time in the Guinean elections and won her seat in the National Assembly.  She stood for election in Boffa as a candidate for the governing party, Rassemblement du Peuple Guinéen or RPG, and won her seat with 62.4% of the vote. She ran against Abdoul Aziz Keita, the UDG candidate. 

The elections took place on March 22nd - along with a constitutional referendum - after being postponed four times from the original date in January 2019. As of March 26th, the country was waiting for judicial validation of the results.