Last week, Risper Rwengo, MDevEng ’24, won the Mastercard Foundation Alumni Scholars Impact Fund‘s $25,000 grand prize. The program — a collaboration of the Big Ideas Contest, the Mastercard Foundation, and the Center for African Studies — supports alumni of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program who are launching and scaling social ventures in their home communities across Africa.

Risper founded Kilimo Safi Sasa, a farmer-owned agricultural logistics pooling and cold-chain system that reduces post-harvest losses and increases incomes for smallholder farmers in Kenya. A huge congrats to her!

Additionally, several current MDevEng students who earned finalist spots at this year’s Big Ideas Contest highlighted their social innovations at May 5’s Grand Prize Pitch Day. 

It was an exciting way to end the school year, and the DevEng team wishes all our students, faculty, alumni, and friends a happy, safe, and rewarding summer.

While Blum Hall will be locked until the start of Fall semester, we’ll still be around for you. And we look forward to hearing about what you do!