Afzal Habib

Afzal Habib
bold idea

Transform the trajectory of children living in urban slums by providing high-quality, affordable early childhood care and education.

organization overview

Kidogo aims to unlock the potential of young children living in East Africa’s low-income communities by providing high-quality, holistic, early childhood care and education. Using an innovative social-franchising model, Kidogo supports local “Mamapreneurs” to start or grow their own childcare micro-business providing better care to young children and peace of mind to working mothers. Kidogo also runs a number of Early Childhood Centres of Excellence (CoEs) that model best practices, engage community members and policy makers, and act as mini-R&D labs to test new innovations. By empowering mothers, and giving young children the best start to life, Kidogo is helping to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Personal Bio

Afzal Habib is the co-founder and chief imagination officer at Kidogo, where he leads the organization’s strategy, business development, and advocacy work. Afzal was inspired by his late grandfather, who used micro-entrepreneurship to escape poverty himself. Today, Afzal uses his experience in business to address inequality in the same low-income communities in Africa and Asia from where his family originates. Prior to Kidogo, Afzal was a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group advising Fortune 500 executives on strategy and growth projects. In his spare time, he supported a number of social enterprises around the world, including Acumen in Kenya, Karibu Solar Power in Tanzania, and CARE in Bangladesh but still was not satisfied. In 2014, Afzal followed his passion for social entrepreneurship, leaving the corporate sector to start Kidogo full time. Afzal graduated from the International Business program at the Schulich School of Business, where he specialized in strategy and entrepreneurship. Afzal is a Young Fund Loran Scholar, is a Forbes Top 30 Under 30 in the social enterprise category, and was named one of Canada’s Top 30 Under 30 sustainability leaders by Corporate Knights magazine. Afzal is a 2015 Echoing Green Fellow.

  • Organization/Fellow Location ?

    Our most recent information as to where the Fellow primarily resides.

    Nairobi, Kenya

  • Impact Location ?

    Countries or continents that were the primary focus of this Fellow’s work at the time of their Fellowship.

  • Organization Structure ?

    An organization can be structured as a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid (a structure that incorporates both nonprofit and for-profit elements).

    Hybrid

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