Dr. Yinges Yigzaw
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About Dr, Yinges Yigzaw
Patents by Inventor Yinges Yigzaw
His story
A short story common among students of rural Ethiopia
I consider myself fortunate in many ways. I got my PhD in Biochemistry at an early age, and for the last 15 years, I worked as a scientist developing life-saving medicines using cutting-edge science and technology. Currently, I am a senior scientist at a pioneering biopharmaceutical company called Genentech. Growing up let alone dreaming of getting this far, the only technology I knew was the sound of a plane flying above the clouds. In fact, given my background, I shouldn’t even be here. I grew up in the remote part of Ethiopia. The village is so remote that it had no school, and to this day has no running water, road or electricity. Growing up is at the mercy of nature and I survived many epidemics including smallpox.
My luckiest opportunity came when the first elementary school opened in the nearby village of Ashuda in 1974 through a donation from Sweden. The school opened opportunities for many kids that live within two hours of walking distance. I become among few lucky once who attend the school for the first time in the area. There were no other pioneers before us to follow, and most of us didn’t have expectations beyond 6th grade. Every morning we start with our chores; fetching water from a river, milking the cows, cleaning the barn, etc. and then we walk an hour to get to school. The daily walk never bothered us and going to school was a privilege.
The school opened our minds to dream big things that we never knew existed. After completing 6th grade continuing to middle school was the biggest challenge me and the other kids faced. The middle school located in a small town of Durbete was too far to walk daily. It takes four hours each way. For a few months, a group of us stayed with a relative, but we were too many (6 total) for a very small place our relative had. Few of our middle school teachers who knew our situation organized the community and built us a small hut in the outskirt of the town. The place provided us a big relief, and we started to live by ourselves. We fetch water from a river, collected firewood and cooked our food. Every Friday we go back to family walking four hours and come back on Sunday evening or Monday morning carrying our weekly food supply.
For high school, we moved farther way to Bahir Dar. Finding a place to live and transportation were challenging. For the first year a relative let us stay in an extra room she had, and for the other years, we rented a room. We brought food supply every 2-3 months. Every Saturday we went to the outskirt of the city, where the current airport is and collected firewood to cook our food. Most of us persisted and managed to complete high school, and some of us made to college. In my case, I graduated in biology/chemistry from Addis Ababa University and within two years moved to Belgium with a scholarship and studied biochemistry at the University of Leuven.
My success is a result of the generosity of many people including those who took us in and provided us places to stay and teachers who helped us build a small hut during middle school. They are all my heroes because they helped us succeed expecting nothing in return. My highest appreciation goes to those donors in Sweden who built our first school in Ashuda for kids they didn’t know. The cost of the school may be small to build in 1974, but its impact is thousand times more. Many that attended the school including myself succeeded and changed their lives and others around them. I am a living witness to show how their generosity changed lives.
Unfortunately, the school that served the community since 1974 is in deteriorating, overcrowded with broken chairs and desks. There are still many kids in nearby villages that have no access to school or going through the same challenges I experienced. I have made a personal mission to provide the same opportunity I had for those that needed the most.