Regina Honu
CEO | Ghana | Soronko Academy
Regina is the CEO of Soronko Solutions. She just opened the first coding and human centered design school for children and adults called Soronko Academy. She was just awarded the 2018 AFS Active Global Citizen Award for her contributions to global competence education and a winner of the Challenging Norms, Powering Economies initiative by Ashoka, Un Women and Open Society Foundations for work to challenge gender norms in women’s economic empowerment
She recently spoke at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and on closing the gender gap in computer science. She also spoke at Brookings Institute in Washington DC on Advancing Female entrepreneurship in Africa. She is an ambassador and mentor for thecamp, first European campus dedicated to emerging technology and social innovation. She is listed as one of BBC 100 most inspirational and innovative women for 2017.She was also recently interviewed by Bishop TD Jakes. She was awarded the 2017 Northwestern University Buffet Institute for Emerging Global Leaders Award and awarded by Coca Cola in the Coca Cola young achievers award as one of the big six and a leader in technology. She was also unveiled as the 2016 Vlisco Brand Ambassador. She won Startup Entrepreneur of the year and Soronko Solutions won Social Start-up of the year for 2016 at the Ghana Startup Awards. She was featured on CNN as one the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). She was named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of 10 female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies. She was awarded Young Entrepreneur of the year by the GPA Awards from Africa 2.0 and JCI Ghana Outstanding Young Person award for scientific and technological advancement. Soronko Solutions was nominated for the editor’s choice award in the Women in IT award in the UK. She was featured on CNN African Voices,CNN African Startups and interviewed by BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle and Aljazeera. She is an Ashoka Fellow,Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, GOOD Fellow, Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum, Vital Voices Fellow and a Change Leader with Tigo Reach For Change. She belongs to Africa Leadership Initiative West Africa .
Her story was published in the Lean In for Graduates by Sheryl Sandberg COO of Facebook, Impatient Optimist blog by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was a finalist for the ITU African Digital Woman of the Year. She is a Mandela Washington Fellow and had the honour of meeting Barack and Michelle Obama. She also recently returned from China from participating in the World Economic Forum Meeting of New Champions which focused on Science and Technology. She is part of the advisory board on a project to amend the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to include Digital rights of a child. She loves to mentor and has been invited to speak and mentor the Camfed master card scholars program, TedxLabone, TedxDartmouth, University Events, Symposium at Harvard University and at Oxford University. She has been invited to speak and participate in events in over 15 countries. She is an online mentor with the Women’s Tech Connect Global Mentoring program. She was awarded a Women of Courage Award for Technology and Tech Needs Girls was awarded in the Ghana CSR Diary Awards.
