Vision. Mission. Values.

VISION

Calestous Juma's dream: A thriving Africa where people and communities flourish through locally-driven, sustainable solutions powered by science, technology, and innovation.

MISSION

To promote and apply science, technology, and innovation (STI) to inspire sustainable development in Africa.

Because there is a huge technology skills deficit for young rural Africans, we support science technology and innovation skilling in remote and rural communities around Lake Victoria. We help youth, especially young women, remove the technology barrier to better economic and life opportunities through training, knowledge transfer and network building.

There's a technology skills gap in rural Africa, and it's holding back a generation.

VALUES

The Foundation’s projects and initiatives are grounded in and guided by the following principles reflecting Prof. Juma’s vision, values, and virtues:

Experimentation and learning—Seeding and building a belief in local learning and action and supporting collective learning by youth and women to collectively solve local problems, with the goal of building interdependence and preventing over-dependence.
Leveraging local content or inputs—Using local knowledge, infrastructure, and other local resources, such as young people’s energy.
Adding value to existing initiatives—Building on promising existing local community efforts rather than duplicating and/or crowding out local initiatives.
Clearly articulating vision and resource limitations—Managing expectations by clearly articulating and emphasizing: humility and simplicity, building human capabilities to be interdependent, and working toward the long-term public good rather than individual monetary gain.
Building local capacity and momentum—Aiming to build local capacity to carry the work forward, in a manner that is responsive to changes in context and to continuous learning from the Foundation’s other projects and initiatives.
Maintaining the Foundation’s initiatives as non-governmental, not-for-profit and not political.