Ekua Bentil is a Senior Education Specialist in the Education Global Practice of the World Bank, with a focus on higher education, digital skills, use of technology in education and STEM agendas in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and improving the participation of women in these areas. She is part of a core team developing the World Bank’s Education Strategy for West and Central Africa. She has been working at the World Bank since 2015.
Ekua is an EdTech Fellow and is also the Africa region’s focal point on Digital Skills, under the World Bank’s Digital Economy for Africa (DE4A) Initiative. She is a team lead on regional higher education projects and initiatives, including: the Africa Centers of Excellence for Development Impact projects (ACE Impact), focusing on postgraduate education and research across various priority sectors in 10 SSA countries; a new regional higher education project (under preparation), on strengthening the advanced digital skills workforce in SSA, by reforming computer science and engineering programs, and the rapid skilling of African youth; and the African government-led Partnership for skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET) – which has operationalized a regional scholarship and innovation fund (RSIF) for PhD training and a Benchmarking initiative for African Universities.
Prior to joining the World Bank, Ekua worked on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, in New York, as a Market Risk Modeler. She holds a PhD and Master’s degrees (2011, 2008) in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a 3-2 dual bachelor’s degree (2006) in Physics from Bryn Mawr College and Electrical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology -Caltech.