Ade Oparinu

Nigeria

Founder, PathShapers Africa

Empowering rural students in Nigeria through talent labs, extracurricular programs, and incentive-driven tech programs.

Adebowale Oparinu is the co-founder of PathShapers Africa, a talent acceleration program dedicated to equipping youth in rural Nigerian public schools for future leadership. Inspired by his upbringing as the child of a rural public school teacher, his model addresses gaps in access to future-of-work skills learning by providing students with extracurricular opportunities often missed in traditional classrooms, including robotics, debate, chess, and digital fluency. His leadership mobilized cross-sector partnerships to orchestrate career fairs for over 1,000 participants, and their incentive-driven competitions have awarded scholarships and prizes to over 100 students. Through the Scholars program, Adebowale aims to build skills in cross-sector partnership building so that he can effectively engage government actors. These capabilities will help him to design and scale a "Rural Talent Acceleration Lab," ensuring that a child's birthplace does not limit their opportunity.