Shadrack Frimpong

Shadrack Osei Frimpong (born ) is a Ghanaian entrepreneur and global health leader. He is the founder of Cocoa360, a nonprofit organisation in rural Ghana where villagers work on communal cocoa farms in exchange for free tuition at an all-girls school and subsidized healthcare. Frimpong has won several awards, including the Queen's Young Leader Award and the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award. He received an Honorary Doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Early life and education Frimpong was born in 1993 or 1994 in Tarkwa Breman, Ghana. His parents farmed and sold charcoal, and he grew up in a household without running water or electricity. At age nine, he experienced a serious infection of his legs that nearly resulted in their amputation. His parents had to use their farm as collateral for a loan so that he could receive treatment at a hospital five hours away. He recalled hoping and praying during his illness that he would not lose his legs, saying, "If I can keep these legs, then I will use them and work to help other people." In 2015, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania He was the first person from his village to attend college in the U.S. In 2018, he returned to University of Pennsylvania for a master's degree in non-profit leadership. as a Gates-Cambridge scholar. He is pursuing a Doctor of Medicine Degree (M.D) at the Yale School of Medicine.

Career and Research Frimpong used the prize money from Amy Gutmann's President's Engagement Prize to found the nonprofit Cocoa360, Frimpong's most recent work includes exploring the role of Agriculture in achieving Universal Health Coverage in Africa, a paper written with Sten H Vermund, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health. He is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, the UK Faculty of Public Health and the American Economic Association.

Awards and honours Frimpong was a recipient of the Amy Gutmann's President's Engagement Prize in 2015, where he received $150,000. which has had past recipients such as U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and MacArthur "Genius" Fellow Angela Duckworth. In 2018, he received the Queen's Young Leader Award. Upon enrolling in Yale University School of Public Health, Frimpong received the Horstmann Scholarship to fund his Master's in Public Health degree. In 2019, Frimpong was also one of six recipients of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award, which recognizes activists who work towards social change under age thirty. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Royal Holloway, University of London in recognition of his contribution to global health and community engagement in Africa.