Social entrepreneur Adam Bradford, originally from Sheffield, United Kingdom, has launched his company’s vision for 2023 with the announcement of an award win and the launch of a centre to train young people in business skills to help them become entrepreneurs in Rwanda, East Africa.

Adam, whose journey into business began through a school competition sixteen years ago when he was 14 years old, has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism and has spoken many times publicly about the positive and negative effects of the condition on his daily life.

His social development agency, Adam Bradford Agency, operates across Europe, the USA and last year opened its latest branch in Rwanda, East Africa.

Adam has been named one of the ‘Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2023’ and ‘Most Inspiring Entrepreneur’ by global business publication Prime View Magazine.

The agency was named as Campaigning Communications Agency of the Year 2022 by Corporate Vision.

As well as announcing this scoop of awards, the Agency has unveiled its latest venture, the Thousand Hills Hub. The centre, which is based in Musanze, a rural location in the north of Rwanda, aims to provide entrepreneurship skills training, leadership development and engaging opportunities for young aspiring entrepreneurs from rural areas who do not ordinarily gain access to employability and business opportunities in order to raise their career aspirations. The venture is a project jointly supported by long-standing Agency partners RwandOpp (Rwanda Opportunities Organization.) The Nyabihu-based non-profit organisation provides empowerment, literacy and development opportunities to underserved young people and was started by One Young World ambassador and Queen’s Young Leader runner-up award winner Emmanuel Nshimiyimana, who acts as its CEO.

On moving to Rwanda, Adam says: ‘I have been constantly inspired and uplifted by the positivity in Africa for many years. My visits to the continent have always left me wanting to come back and do more as young people and enterprise is thriving - it is just unfortunate that opportunities do not reach those that need them most often. I see my job as being transferring skills, expertise, inspiration and the platforms to enable entrepreneurship and social change to really drive the heartbeat of 21st century business. After a warm welcome by Rwanda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2022, I knew that this country was the place with the warmth, vision and structure to help us expand into Africa and I have never looked back since. I am really proud of our team’s work and these recent awards and can’t wait to continue to announce our programmes and activity for the year.’

In collaboration with RwandOpp, the Agency has delivered a rural hackathon programme to inspire and train young budding entrepreneurs from rural communities and is currently focusing on a series of Hackathons and interactive forums with international gaming compliance firm Crucial Compliance, to mitigate the dangers of gambling addiction across the continent - this is an issue Adam faced in his own family when his father David hid a court case and secret gambling addiction for many years, facing a jail sentence for stealing money from his employers to fund his habit. Adam successfully campaigned for law changes in this area in the United Kingdom and has worked with leading companies in this space since to implement safer gambling practices.