Eric W. Glustrom, age 27, and Boris Bulayev, age 26, were honored for their leadership of Educate!. Glustrom started Educate! in 2002 at the age of 17 after filming a documentary in a refugee settlement in Uganda. Glustrom was inspired to start Educate! after recognizing the potential of youth to become leaders who could develop solutions to the challenges facing their country and continent. Boris Bulayev teamed with Glustrom to lead Educate! at the start of their sophomore year at Amherst College. Glustrom and Bulayev graduated from Amherst College in 2007 with degrees in biochemistry and economics respectively. More information on Eric W. Glustrom and Boris Bulayev is available on the of the Educate! website.
Educate! empowers 1,400 youth across Uganda, where over half of the population is under the age of 15. The organization provides social entrepreneurship training, long-term mentorship, and access to capital to help youth create and lead solutions to poverty, disease, violence, environmental degradation, and the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, 83 percent. The model is exponential empowerment – investing long-term in youth so they can positively impact many others. The government of Uganda recently asked Educate! to incorporate its social entrepreneurship course into the national education system. It will reach 45,000 youth annually and be the first national social entrepreneurship curriculum in the world. Educate!’s work to empower Uganda’s youth aims to help the country develop a generation capable of determining their own future and defining progress for their time.