Global Citizen Announces Winner of 2023 Cisco Youth Leadership Award

This year’s Cisco Youth Leadership Award recipient is 2021 Fellowship Alumnus Nkosana Butholenkosi Masuku, Founder and CEO of Phenomtech-Sciency Learning, from Zimbabwe.

The Cisco Youth Leadership Award was established in 2018 by Cisco and Global Citizen to celebrate an individual aged between 18-30 who has contributed meaningfully towards the goal of ending extreme poverty in their community, through their leadership, dedication, and innovation.

A Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) teacher working at a rural school, Nkosana created Sciency Learning as a result of the lack of resources for teaching STEM in Zimbabwe’s rural communities. Sciency’s objective is to provide low-cost STEM education to students across Zimbabwe in a bid to reduce dropout rates and advance STEM development across the country.

As the prize winner, Nkosana will receive a US$250,000 grant to their organization to enable its continued growth. Candidates were judged, by a panel including representatives from Global Citizen, Cisco, esteemed activists, and leaders in the international development field, against five equally-weighted criteria, including impact, vision, catalyst, global citizenship, and technology innovation.

For more information about the Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award, visit www.globalcitizen.org/prize.