Wolfson Trailblazer: Gilbert Nkpeniyeng

This quietly tenacious spirit is evident when reflecting on the remarkable journey that brought Gilbert from a childhood spent in a rural part of the Upper West Region of Ghana to Cambridge and to Wolfson. 

Ving Ving, the village where Gilbert was born as the youngest of four children into a proud Dagaaba family, is a tight-knit traditional community which subsists on the cultivation of groundnut, millet, maize, and other crops. He is the only person from his household who had the opportunity to finish school and is the first in his family to obtain a university degree. For Gilbert, having the chance to read for an MPhil in Development Studies as a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at Cambridge is still, as he says, “unbelievable” because he had never thought that this could be the right place for him. 

The Dagaaba are a minority group in Ghana. They live mainly in the Sahelian and Sudanian savannah regions of West Africa and speak Dagaare which belongs to the Gur language family.

On Wednesday 12 June 2024, Gilbert won the first prize at the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Programme Entrepreneurship Prize Competition, hosted in collaboration with the King’s Entrepreneurship Lab at the Judge Business School. His initiative, Ubuntu Social Enterprise-Ghana, is centered around making the labour of groundnut farmers in Ghana’s Northern belt more profitable, while also providing them with the knowledge to maximise their agricultural yield by employing more climate resilient methods of farming. Having helped his father farm from a very young age, Gilbert has an intimate knowledge of the plight of subsistence farmers in this pocket of Africa. 

Given the time to consider the many hardships faced by his community, Gilbert is sometimes overcome by emotion at the enormity of the responsibility, related to the opportunities afforded to him, to uplift his people. 

His determination, however, to achieve this objective is greater than the attendant despair. In his own words, Gilbert “hardly ever gives up,” often “going for miles and miles” but knowing that he will get to the place he wants to be in the end – “the future,” he says, “is exciting but it will also take care of itself.” 

Along the way, there have been two mentors whom Gilbert describes as the “backbone” of his success. The first is Fidelis Da-uri, one of the first people in Ving Ving who finished school and who works for Amplio, an NGO which uses audio technology to improve the level of education in rural and vulnerable communities around the world. It was through Amplio’s Talking Book project and Fidelis’ constant encouragement and support that Gilbert was inspired to persevere with his education. He also met Erin Inclán, then Communications Director of Amplio, a nonprofit organisation based in Seattle, and so has been able to expand his network further and further. Gilbert believes that “all he has managed to achieve at university was because of Erin,” as she was instrumental in motivating him during his undergraduate years at the University for Development Studies in Northern Ghana, along with submitting a reference for his application to Cambridge. 

The day in September 2023 when Gilbert left Ghana for Cambridge counted as only his second visit to Accra, that country’s bustling capital city situated on the humid West African coast and a far cry from the dry savannah landscape of his youth. At Cambridge, it would be the luscious gardens of Wolfson where Gilbert felt most at home and the Library where he would spend hours relishing the ability to immerse himself in his research. He also remembers fondly the support that he received from his Tutor and the porters as well as the camaraderie that exists amongst members of the Wolfson community. Being able to revel in the diversity of perspectives at the College has, according to Gilbert, significantly enriched his experience at Cambridge.

After finishing his internship with the University of Cambridge’s Development and Alumni Relations Office in September 2024, Gilbert will be going forward with his entrepreneurial initiative in Ghana as well as actively seeking employment in the development sector, both in the United Kingdom as well as across Africa. He is determined to change the fortune of his community and to ensure that his brother and sisters’ children are able to finish school. 

As for the future of the African continent, Gilbert believes that it is time for young Africans to work to change what he sees as the current political mindset of pernicious self-preoccupation, to one in which the spirit of Ubuntu is alive: “I am because we are.” 

Ubuntu refers to an African value-system which has the Zulu phrase Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu at its core - ‘I am a person through other people’. 

Article by Dr Tineke W. Harris