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September 28, 2026

New Horizons boss, Akano for 2026 Humanity Flourishing Prize

By Upfrontdigital News 0 5 Views

 

By Favour Unukaso

RECOGNISED among an elite international cohort for a two-decade campaign to reach Africa’s 100 million out-of-school children  and reposition the continent’s economic future

Timothy Olukayode Akano, Founder/CEO of New Horizons Africa Group and one of Africa’s most decorated technopreneurs, has been named a Finalist for the 2026 Humanity Flourishing Prize, a global recognition awarded by I AM HUMANITY, the U.S.-registered nonprofit movement dedicated to the long-term flourishing of humanity and life on Earth.

The nomination places Akano among what organizers describe as “an extraordinary group of nominees working across many countries and fields of endeavor,” selected for contributions making a measurable difference in the lives of people, communities, and the world, and winners will be announced globally on October 24, 2026, which is  Humanity Day. It is a celebration that expanded to 53 countries as at 2025.

“Being named a Finalist is itself a recognition of contribution to humanity flourishing,” organizers told Akano in notifying him of his selection.

“This nomination is not about me. It is a spotlight on 100 million children the world has not yet found a way to reach, and proof that we already know how,” Akano said, reacting to the news.

For more than two decades, Akano has operated on a single premise: human potential should never be wasted because of poverty, disability, lack of access to education, or the circumstances of one’s birth. That conviction has translated into concrete, measurable interventions across Nigeria and the African continent, most urgently, into the lives of the 100 million children currently out of school across Africa, a crisis Mr. Akano has built his life’s work around solving.

In 2026, Akano launched the Almajiri-to-Tech Empowerment Scheme, enrolling 21 Almajiri children, among Nigeria’s most visible faces of childhood vulnerability in structured technology training. Beyond instruction, the program provided daily meals, transportation, clothing, tools, and a safe learning environment throughout the six-month curriculum.

On graduation, rather than releasing the children back to the streets, Akano built a dedicated workshop where the graduates now work, and earn, a philosophy rooted in his belief that young people routinely treated as social problems can instead become net economic contributors when society invests in their capacity. The initiative has since grown into the Out-of-School-Almajiri-Vulnerable Children-to-Tech Foundation.

His humanitarian reach extends further. Through the Tim Akano Foundation, he returned to Baptist Day School, Oluponna, the primary school he attended as a child in Osun State between 1972 and 1978 and adopted it outright, providing fencing, borehole water, toilets, uniforms, and learning materials for the 300 pupils walking the same halls he once did.

Also, through his support of the Federal School of the Blind, Oshodi, Lagos, he computerized the institution, provided internet access, and sponsored blind ICT instructor Olayinka Akinbiyi to teach fellow visually impaired students free of charge, a conviction, in Mr. Akano’s own words, that disability should never be grounds for exclusion from the digital economy, and that technology should remove barriers rather than create new ones.

Africa’s average income per person today stands at roughly $2,370 a year. Akano’s central thesis now central to his Humanity Flourishing Prize candidacy  is that equipping Africa’s excluded youth at scale could move that figure toward $10,000 per person, lifting the continent from the World Bank’s lower-income tiers into its upper-middle-income band.

For a movement built around education, economics, communal well-being, and environment as the four pillars of human flourishing, Akano’s model speaks directly to at least two of those dimensions at the continental scale.

Beyond his humanitarian portfolio, Mr. Akano serves as President of One Africa Initiatives and One Africa Academy, uniting African intellectuals, professionals, and diaspora leaders around technological, civic, and economic development for the continent and empowering youths across Africa with life skills like entrepreneurship,  critical thinking and  good citizenship among others.

He is also the pioneering convener of the World Cyber Security Conference and has championed semiconductor knowledge-transfer partnerships between African stakeholders and international partners, including the Taiwanese government and Taipei University work aimed at positioning Africa, for the first time, inside the $1 trillion global semiconductor economy.

He has received more than 350 national, continental, and international awards recognizing his contributions to youth empowerment, education, leadership, technology development, and humanitarian service, spanning sectors from business and education to philanthropy and public leadership.

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