Praise Ogunleke

I am a fourth-year medical student at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. After identifying gaps in employability education in 2023, I started “The Leverage Project”, a non-profit initiative dedicated to reducing employment inequalities experienced by young people in Nigeria. Since inception, the initiative has supported more than 1270 students and young professionals through mentorship, training and resources — enabling more than 150 beneficiaries to secure employment, internships and global opportunities.

I am a 2024 recipient of The Diana Award – the highest accolade any young person can receive for their social action work and humanitarian effort and my work has been featured in The Nation Newspaper, Nigerian Tribune, Vanguard amongst others. I am a 2021 Millennium Fellow where I doubled as Campus Director, and also an Associate at the Nigeria Youth SDGs Network.

Among my initiatives are ‘The Exemplars Magazine’, with 1,864 readers across 15 countries, and ‘The Innovation Workshop’, which connects young changemakers and teaches them to address social problems in their communities through design-thinking.

I currently lead the team at Krest Consulting — an education and job consulting brand that offres services on CV/Resume Writing and review, profile optimization, essay writing and public speaking. Alongside helping professionals land jobs, the brand has faciliated trainings for over 500 university students in Nigeria including student of the University of Ibadan, Babcock Univeristy, University of Lagos, Osun State University, Olabisi Onabanjo University and others.

Despite challenges like limited funding and juggling medical studies, I have facilitated 75+ workshops to deliver employability training, raised over $5,000, partnered with 35 organisations, and sparked transformative social action.

As a medical student who's forward about healthcare reforms, I led the Programs Team for the 2024 Ogbomoso Health Summit — a strategic gathering of healthcare experts, policy makers, future healthcare professionals and other stakeholders in the healthcare sector with a view to sharing innovative models and best practices for public health sector reforms.

I have been named one of the Top 10 Undergraduate Students in Africa by Ubuntu Magazine and I became the first and only medical student to receive the Humanitarian/Voluntary Leadership Award under the auspices of Junior Chambers International (JCI) in my school.