I have to give a disclaimer to say that I have not been explicitly intimidated or discouraged; that’s probably because of my attitude, haha. I have c… - Elsie Effah Kaufmann

In 2010 I received the best teacher award for sciences at my university – University of Ghana. This award was for the work I had done to help establish engineering plus the activities I do in my classes. Each of my classes has a course project because I want to change the narrative from just theoretical exposure in class to something more practical for my students. So my students know me for asking them to look for problems in their societies and come to class with them. They know that I don’t have all the solutions but I have a lot of experience; so if your solution is not feasible, I have the ability to point that out and give you suggestions on how to make it work.

If you follow my path you will see that I have been a pioneer in most of things that I do. So when I start a project, I have a vision for it. And as you can imagine, I work with teams because I enjoy maximising the synergy that comes from individuals from different backgrounds. When assembling my teams, I give people chances, I give everyone the benefit of the doubt but I have unfortunately been disappointed in the past. I have worked with people who haven’t understood my vision sometimes, there are some who have worked hard to undermine my abilities. I don’t know if this has been because I was young or a woman!

Haha, you know I recently got a chance to speak to a group of students who invited me to their session and my title was about sustainable success. I asked them what they considered successful. Winnie, I have received many awards and many people know me for the awards but all my awards have been received because of things I did for other people; I have never received an award for anything I have done for myself! So to me success is about your contribution to others; the sacrifices you make to make life better for others.