Yamoah Frimpong Attafuah, son of the Chief Executive Officer of the National Identification Authority (NIA) is among three recipients of the 2024 President’s Award for the Ashesi University. 

Mr Frimpong Attafuah received the President’s Award for Scholarship, Leadership, and Citizenship together with Maxine Brenya and Daniel Seworye. 

The recognition is the most significant award a student can receive upon graduation. It is presented to those who have not only excelled academically but have also demonstrated a deep commitment to the values and mission of the university.

The trio received the recognition during the 2024 congregation of the university held on Saturday. 

They were awarded for their exceptional services in their respective disciplines geared towards global and national development. 

Yamoah Frimpong Attafuah 

Mr Frimpong Attafuah graduated on top of his class with the highest academic distinction - a summa cum laude in Computer Engineering. 

While at school, he was engaged in other extracurricular activities including taking up leadership roles and serving on the academic committee of the university. 

He was dedicated to supporting his colleagues and other students to adjust to the tedious course loads at the university.

“As a talented and diligent student who thrived academically, he could have chosen to look out for himself only. Rather, he made time to serve at our Math Resource Center, tutoring many students in hours of one-on-one sessions. Even during exams season, he made time to take his mates through problem sets,” the University wrote.

Mr Attafuah rose to become the Vice President of the Students' Representative Council of the university in early 2023.

“He was an able right-hand man, facilitating the development of new activities; helping to invigorate clubs and societies; energizing students’ participation in events; and being a classy envoy for his team. Any student council programme was more likely to be smooth, exciting, and successful because Yamoah was involved,” the University wrote.

His passionate interests and dedication to humanity saw him and his team develop a device that “enables the blind and visually impaired to plot and interpret bar graphs and perform simple mathematical computations”.

He together with three others, also developed “a best practices guide to improve Schneider Electric’s use of Large Language Models” after conducting several experiments.

Maxine Brenya

Maxine Brenya led an exemplary effort while at university earning her the prestigious recognition.

She is a business enthusiast, who in her first year founded a fashion business and supported others to launch initiatives in agriculture, publishing and higher education.

“On campus, she has been a constant and creative presence whenever something worthy needed to be done. For example, she was curation lead for Tedx Ashesi and a research intern for the Design Lab on a mental health project,” the university wrote.

Her intellectual interests span Asante artefacts, Russian literature, and the science of human disasters.

It came as no surprise at all when: “In June this year, amidst the hustle of final year workload, she accepted to speak at the Pan-African Students Summit in Accra. Maxine is a Melton Foundation fellow who works with other fellows to promote the ethos of global citizenship on our campus.

Late last year, she was one of the few students chosen to work with MBA students from Harvard to provide business advisory services to Ghanaian ventures,” the university highlighted.
Ms Brenya served as the Vice-chairperson of the Judicial and Electoral committee of the university.

Daniel Seworye

Daniel Seworye with his infectious ever-smiling and affable persona won the hearts of his colleagues and the university community while on campus.

His problem-solving skills and astuteness saw him design innovative technological solutions to critical problems that faced the society spanning agriculture, health, and education among others.

Mr. Seworye developed a web application that teaches science and math, making these subjects easier and more enjoyable for children.

When the globe was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, he developed a tool that synthesized COVID-19 data from across the world and shared the information for public education.

Mr Seworye also worked with a team that tested the use of IoT technology to improve productivity for small-scale farms, and a simple light measuring system that automates the work of security systems, greenhouse farming, and energy use in households.

He again developed a low-cost, low-power pulse detector for monitoring the function of the heart.

The school celebrated the exceptional efforts of these young graduates in instigating projects that thrive in national development and inspire others to press on.