Before founding Ashesi, Patrick Awuah Jr. worked as a Program Manager for Microsoft Corporation. He holds bachelor degrees in Engineering and Economics from Swarthmore College, and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Patrick is a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and a member of the USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid. He has received Ghana's Millennium Excellence Award for Educational Development and been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company magazine. In 2015, he was named a MacArthur Fellow, becoming the first Ghanaian to win the award. In 2017, he was named winner of the World Innovation Summit in Education Prize for Education, a prestigious award that celebrates global excellence in education and the people helping improve education around the world.