Yiya co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer Samson Wambuzi started his career as a physics teacher. From his own childhood experiences, he was already committed to working towards what would become Yiya’s vision for education: A world where access to education is truly equitable for all African youth.

As a teacher and later part of the design team at Educate!, Samson discovered a talent for educational design. That talent, coupled with a deep passion to leverage the power of experiential learning to end cycles of poverty for youth in Uganda, led him to co-found Yiya in 2016. In 2020, in the height of the COVID pandemic, Samson and his co-founder were selected as MIT Solvers for Yiya AirScience, an offline remote learning model that increases access to education by removing the physical and financial barriers faced by African children in last mile populations. Yiya AirScience was also selected by the African Union as one of the top 3 Innovations in Education in Africa.

Samson has individually been recognized as a 2019 Obama Africa Leader and 2021 Collaborative Learning Initiative Fellow with the Issroff Family Foundation, and has been interviewed by CNN International on CNN Inside Africa. Samson is a graduate of Makerere University.