Professors Without Borders (PROWIBO) aims to provide equal access to higher education for students all over the globe, equipping them with the skills necessary to be inspiring leaders and have a meaningful impact in their communities.
At Carrier, we're passionate about increasing our own knowledge of the world, and so we have an obvious affinity to PROWIBO’s philosophy of championing education and learning for everyone. Their ambition is to create a community of academics and professionals to share their expertise with students everywhere, and we are proud to embark on this journey with them.
Build customised short-term summer schools for university students made available to any institution that invites PROWIBO to their campus.
Offer tailored education and training experiences to companies, organisations and students, focusing on skills building for the 21st century, and provide additional free career development support online.
Operate a Think Tank, sharing learnings with other academics and policy makers, and publishing several papers a year based on experience learned in-country.
PROWIBO aims to bridge the educational divide between countries, aspiring to actively halt the 'brain drain' phenomenon by bringing academics into a country rather than taking students out.
Educating up to 300 students a year, summer schools are designed to develop professional skills in countries all over the world, so far including Sierra Leone, Uganda, India and Thailand.
By developing talent at home and encouraging students to build their skills as well as their confidence, they will be equipped to contribute to the development and growth of their country.
PROWIBO aims to make students aware of the world as well as encourage them to develop a responsible and responsive attitude to their immediate surrounding.
Inspired by a Summer Schools model from the London School of Economics, PROWIBO aims to place the best and brightest teachers, professionals and academics in institutions of higher education around the world to run one to two week long skills-building workshops.
Courses are adapted to each country where PROWIBO teaches and universities can request specific courses. Each course lasts between three and ten days with a minimum of an hour and a half of class each day.
All courses are university-level from undergraduate to masters and are self-contained; meaning students are not required to have previous experience with taught material.
Working with local lecturers to address the needs of the community, courses are tailored to each university and have covered diverse topics such as peacekeeping and negotiation in a post-conflict environment, design thinking and entrepreneurship, global finance and implementing community health intervention.
The team includes academics from the University of Oxford, London School of Economics & Political Science, University of Bath, University of Leeds, New York Institute of Technology and Richmond, The American International University in London.
PROWIBO was set up by three lecturers at Regent’s University London: Tessy de Nassau, Dr Caroline Varin and Majeks Walker (pictured), who wanted to correct the imbalance of educational privilege and the obvious lack of access to first-rate, higher education in developing countries.
Here, we speak to co-founder, Tessy, a 33-year-old social entrepreneur, businesswoman, philanthropist, UNAIDS Ambassador, public speaker, activist and ex-military official, on the importance of education.
Life lessons with Tessy de NassauDue to the nature of PROWIBO’s operation, travel costs have historically proved to be a limiting factor with inter-continental flights, ground arrangements and accommodation all needing to be paid for. With Carrier’s support, this is no longer the case. Now an official sponsor of the organisation, Carrier began in 2018 by funding the travel costs of just three professors, without whom the schools faced being cancelled. In 2019, we were able to have an even bigger impact by covering the cost of and coordinating the travel arrangements for all 15 professors for the summer schools taking place across Sierra Leone, Senegal, Uganda, India and Thailand.
Following a pause in on-the-ground courses during the global pandemic, PROWIBO continues to grow, widen their reach and offer more summer schools to additional institutions around the world. So far in 2022, we have supported professors in Nigeria, Guinea, Nepal and Malaysia and we are committed to coordinate the travel arrangements for the remaining schools this year.
Cover the travel costs of a dedicated academic for the next series of summer schools
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