Gideon Oluwaseun Olanrewaju is a Nigerian social entrepreneur and educational development practitioner who created , non-profit organisation that creates multiple quality informal and alternative learning systems in rural communities and has facilitated access to education for over 6,000 disadvantaged children in Nigeria.
Early Life and Education
Olanrewaju was born in IkirunOsun State on 10 July 1993. In 1994, his family moved to Osogbo where he completed his primary school education and later attended Unity School in Ejigbo also in Osun State where he graduated in 2009. He proceeded to Ladoke Akintola UniversityOgbomosho with a bachelor of technology degree in Biochemistry and then obtained Masters of Arts in International Education and Development at the University of Sussex in 2018. He is currently conducting his Doctoral Studies with the Preventing Extremism through Educational Research research group at McGill University Canada, on the inter-relationship between Violent Extremism and Girls Education in Nigeria.
Career and Activism
Olanrewaju's mission is to see a world where every child, regardless of socio-economic status or geographical location have access to quality educational opportunities in Nigeria. In November 2014, Olanrewaju founded Aid to Rural Education Initiative which aim to improve learning outcomes for poor and vulnerable children from low income families and in poor communities by empowering children in these communities, as a youth activist his online and offline advocacy efforts are cemtered around key themes of educational development such as education finance, safe youths and youth involvement in local and global education policy-making. He has participated and represented Nigeria at high-level meetings such as the World Education Forum in Incheon, 66th UN/DPI NGO Conference in Gyeongju, 16th UNESCO Asia Conference on Quality Education in Bangkok, 14th United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi, 7th UNESCO NGO Forum in Riyadh, Under-30 Young Change-makers Summit in New York, and spoke at the 1st World Youth Forum Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt and the 8th UNESCO NGO Forum in Paris. In September 2018, Olanrewaju was appointed UN DPI youth representative to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. In October 2019, as a Deloitte sponsored delegate to the One Young World Summit in London, Gideon was invited to the Windsor Castle as part of a group of 10young leaders from across the world for a roundtable discussion with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Megan Markle of the British Royal Family. His engagement at this meeting dwelled on Education-in-bottles, an educational intervention of his organisation that provides basic educational infrastructure through waste plastic bottles to support access to quality education and empowerment for marginalised girls and vulnerable women in educationally-deprived communities.
Awards and Nominations
In 2017, the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office awarded him a Chevening Scholarship to study for a Masters in International Education and Development at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. In November 2018, he was nominated and shortlisted as a part of five finalists for the Future African Awards Prize in Education. In August 2019, he was also nominated for the SME 100 25 under 25 Awards under the Education Category
