Case studies - Henry Warren

Henry Warren, 26, started Africa Bookcase aged eighteen, after visiting Uganda. The charity initially provided libraries for schools in East Africa, sourcing the textbooks from donor schools in the UK.

Henry is an Ambassador for Make Your Mark, the national campaign to unlock the UK’s enterprise potential, and supporter of Shine.

After leaving university, Henry became further driven by a desire to enable UK pupils to engage with pupils in the developing world. He developed software that enables schools with only basic computer resources to use the internet. It enabled five pupils to share one computer and four computers to share one phoneline. It has since been used to link over 10,000 pupils in 40 countries across the world. During the links the pupils collaborated on projects ranging from AIDS to Shakespeare.

Since then Africa Bookcase has grown significantly and changed its name to Gemin-i.org, and Henry has taken on several other projects including the Young People’s Commission for Africa. This project linked 25 schools in the UK with 25 in Africa during 2005 to engage in debate around the Commission for Africa. The project culminated with the production of a large educational website (written by the pupils) about the issues that matter to children. Four pupils from Kenya, Malawi and the UK then presented these ideas at the G8 Summit at Gleneagles.

Gemin-i.org was also behind the organisation of the Bigger Picture project, part of The British Museum and the BBC’s contribution to Africa 05, whereby 11,500 postcards were written by children throughout the continent answering the question, ‘What matters to me?’.

Henry’s entrepreneurial activities were originally recognised when he was named as a finalist in the Community category of the Enterprising Young Brits awards in 2004.