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Boilerplate
Short
Kabakoo Academies is a Bamako- and Lomé-based upskilling organization building youth economic-mobility infrastructure for Francophone West Africa. Its Highdigenous model blends AI-powered learning, community mentorship, and local knowledge, with income effects measured against control groups for 32 months.
Long
Kabakoo is a Bamako- and Lomé-based upskilling organization building youth economic mobility infrastructure for Francophone West Africa. Through its Highdigenous model, Kabakoo blends AI-powered learning, community mentorship, local knowledge, and hands-on projects to enable young people to build productive livelihoods where formal jobs are scarce. The organization currently engages 43,000+ young people and works with public and academic partners to bring locally rooted innovation into national education and workforce systems. Kabakoo's longitudinal evidence shows durable agency and income gains, continued skill-building, and positive spillovers into learners' communities. By 2030, Kabakoo aims to reach 1 million youth.
In August 2026, Mali's national upskilling program, launched under the authority of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Digital Economy, began enrolling its first cohort on Kabakoo's platform, with a shared ambition to upskill 15,000 young people by the end of 2027. Kabakoo is legally registered in Mali as La Maison de l'Etonnement.
Correct spellings
| Term | Note |
|---|---|
| Kabakoo Academies | "Kabakoo" on second mention |
| Highdigenous | one word, capital H, never "Highindigenous" |
| WhatsApp Learning System | Kabakoo's platform; "WLS" on second mention |
| Pods | peer groups of three to five; singular "pod". The design draws on the grin, the Malian tea circle |
| Bamanankan | the language; "Bambara" also accepted |
| Kabakooins | in-product tokens |
| CFPM Missabougou | a major TVET center in Mali, digitized with Kabakoo; "CFPM" on second mention |
| Bamako.ai | the annual festival, lowercase ".ai" |
| The Labs | three standing labs: the Urban Agriculture Lab; the Regenerative Architecture & Design Lab; the Textile & Fashion Lab |
| Le Nid de Bamako | the fan pavilion; "Le Nid" on second mention |
| TabliCool | one word, capital T and C; the reinvented desert fridge (zeer) |
| Highdigenous Talks | the master-artisan story series |
| Dôgôkun Sôrô | "treasure of the week" in Bambara; the endogenous-architecture video series |
| Sènè Yiriwa | alumni-founded irrigation company (Boubou D.) |
| La Maison de l'Etonnement | the legal entity and the Bamako house |
| Michèle Traoré | Co-Founder & CEO |
| Yanick Kemayou | Dr.; Co-Founder & Chief Learning Officer; not "Yannick" |
| Djimé Sacko | Head of Technology |
People
| Nom | Title | One line |
|---|---|---|
| Michèle Traoré | Co-Founder & CEO | From Timbuktu, Mali |
| Dr. Yanick Kemayou | Co-Founder & Chief Learning Officer | Street vendor in Yaoundé, then PhD in economics summa cum laude (Paderborn); taught at the Sorbonne |
| Djimé Sacko | Head of Technology | Joined Cohort 1 as a learner in 2019; Amazon Now Go Build CTO Fellow, 1 of 8 worldwide (2026) |
Locations
| Place | Detail |
|---|---|
| Bamako, Mali | Hub at Missabougou, Commune VI; La Maison de l'Étonnement |
| Ségou, Mali | Hub |
| Lomé, Togo | Permanent pole, Djidjolé |
Images
Direct downloads, high-resolution, no email gate. Credit "Kabakoo Academies" unless the file name says otherwise. All learner faces in this kit have consent on record; please keep first name + last initial in captions.
- Founder photograph: Michèle Traoré and Yanick Kemayou, together on stage | JPG, 1400px
- Michèle Traoré at the Skoll World Forum, Oxford | JPG, 1400px
- Highdigenous architecture build, bamboo structure, Bamako | JPG, 2000px
- Community gathering, Bamako | JPG, 1400px
- Learners at work, Bamako | JPG, 1400px
- Djenné panorama, Mali | JPG, 2000px
- Learners running the Kabakoo stand at SENUMA (VR demo), Bamako, July 2026 | JPG, 1400px
- Kabakoo on the front page of L'Essor, 28 July 2026 | JPG, 800px
- Master weaver Samaou Touré in her workshop | JPG, 474px
- Inside Le Nid de Bamako on opening night | JPG, 1400px
- The TabliCool in use | JPG, 720px
- Logo, aubergine on transparent | PNG, 720px
- Logo, cream on transparent (for dark surfaces) | PNG, 720px
Click any photo to download it at full size. All six are Kabakoo's own published photographs.
Coverage and appearances
In the press
- Jun 2022RFI, "Alors on dit quoi?", live from VivaTech in Paris, with Yanick Kemayou on Sahelian youth and innovation
- Jun 2022TechCabal, on African startups and the future of work at VivaTech
- Dec 2021Afrikipresse, "Au Mali, des jeunesses se construisent un avenir grâce au numérique" (archived copy)
- Mar 2021CNBC Africa, "Kabakoo Academies, EdTech leader and pioneer of no-code training in Africa"
- Mar 2021Nairametrics, on the Zoom EdInnovation Award and the first no-code training in West Africa
- Jan 2021Süddeutsche Zeitung, "Leben heißt Probleme lösen", a profile of Yanick Kemayou
- Feb 2020Le Monde, "Kabakoo, l'école qui complète les cursus classiques au Mali"
- Dec 2019BBC Afrique, video report from the Bamako campus
Appearances and institutional coverage
- Aug 2026National upskilling program launches under the authority of Mali's Prime Minister; the Minister's enrollment spot recorded for broadcast on ORTM
- 27–29 Jul 2026AI for Global Development Accelerator sprint, Nairobi (Agency Fund, OpenAI, Center for Global Development)
- 28 Jul 2026Front page of L'Essor, Mali's state-owned national daily, ahead of SENUMA, where Kabakoo was a strategic partner for the third year
- Jun 2026World Economic Forum report "Shaping the Future of Learning: Education Readiness for the Age of AI" names Kabakoo among the experts whose input informed it
- 10 Jun 2026World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab Sahel seminar, Washington DC. Michèle Traoré, practitioner speaker, "Promoting Youth Employment in the Sahel"
- 1–5 Jun 2026REAL ML 2026 flagship workshop, Johannesburg. Yanick Kemayou, Day 1 plenary on the ethics of working with communities and data collection
- Apr 2026Skoll World Forum, Oxford. Michèle Traoré speaks at the Elevate Prize event "Dear Future: Building with the Next Generation"
- Feb–Mar 2026Jobs for Youth in Africa Knowledge Exchange, Nairobi, convened by the Government of Kenya and the World Bank with some 40 African countries
- Oct 2025Presentation at World Bank headquarters, Washington DC, on model replication across public systems
- Sep 2025Featured in the World Bank's "Africa LEADS" article
- 2025Make Good Famous Summit, Miami (Elevate Prize winner)
- Jul 2024ORTM "Actu Hebdo," 45-minute live appearance on Mali's first national channel
- 2024World Economic Forum, "Shaping the Future of Learning: AI in Education 4.0," one of 9 global case studies
- 2023–2024Innovation Lab covered in 8+ Sahel-region outlets, including L'Evénement Niger, allAfrica, and Journal du Cameroun
- 2020World Economic Forum "Schools of the Future," one of 16 worldwide
For monthly first-party updates since July 2023, see the Kabakoo update on Substack, written by Michèle Traoré and Yanick Kemayou.