Boris Bulayev is the CEO & Co-Founder of Educate!, which provides youth in East Africa with the skills to succeed in today‘s economy. As an immigrant from Latvia and a refugee himself, Boris believes in the power of giving young people access to mentorship and transformative learning experiences – both of which allowed him to move from starting in the US on welfare and food stamps to where he is today.

Under Boris’s leadership, Educate! has grown to become the largest youth employment and skills provider in East Africa, meaningfully impacting over 390,000 youth across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. With a team of over 250 staff and 300 youth mentors, the organization has received much acclaim for its work, including the 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and the 2015 WISE Award. Educate! was also highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE’s Impact Portfolio, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies in their global scaling education learning initiative, the UN’s Generation Unlimited as one of 20 innovative youth solutions, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator.

Before jumping into Educate! full-time, Boris worked at startup incubator Loeb Enterprises. Boris is a recipient of the 2011 Grinnell College Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize and a two-time Forbes Top 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur.