A graduate from the Department of Sociology, University of Calabar and an emerging Social Entrepreneur. As an undergraduate, she served as the Project Director of Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE), University of Calabar team. Grace, like many young emerging leaders is poised with great passion for positive change in Nigeria. Passionately committed to creating value and helping young people develop their leadership and entrepreneurship towards nation building, she has recently initiated and launched the RYPE Project.

Before now, Grace has been actively involved in various community based and youth-led projects under the auspices of various youth organizations. In 2010, she was conferred with the SIFE Nigerian’s Award for Excellence in Leadership and Service. She also got a US Government Sponsored scholarship award to study Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Connecticut’s Global Training and Development Institute, Connecticut, USA.

RYPE is an acronym for Raising Young and Productive Entrepreneurs. The RYPE Initiative is a youth-led “afterschool youth development program”. Grace Ihejiamaizu is an entrepreneur and Global Changemaker. In 2010, she founded an after-school youth project, Raising Young and Productive Entrepreneurs (RYPE) Initiative. Through RYPE, more than 350 young people have been trained, engaged and empowered. Grace’s outstanding leadership skills has earned her some national and international recognition including being named one of Google’s 12 Brightest Young Minds in 2011, and the recognition by US  State Department as ‘International Exchange Alumni Member of the Month for September 2012’. She was also selected as one of the top 60 Global ChangeMakers in 2012. At only 22 years, she has just started a Social Enterprise company, iKapture Networks, which provides educational services and products to secondary and post-secondary students in Nigeria. She is also the founder and content creator of the fast growing online platform, opportunitydesk.org, with more than 100,000 visitors monthly from over 160 countries across the world.