Author

Nthanda Manduwi is a Malawian storyteller, entrepreneur, digital transformation advocate, and community builder driven by the mission to empower Africa’s economic landscape through innovation and technology. Her work intersects education, entrepreneurship, and technology, focusing on creating opportunities that bridge the gap between local talent and global markets.

As the founder of Ntha Foundation, Kwathu Kollective, Bien Corporation Africa, and newly Q2 Corporation, she has led initiatives that have impacted over 500,000 young people across Africa and beyond, fostering digital literacy and workforce development across Africa. She is passionate about leveraging technology to drive sustainable growth and ensuring that African youth have the tools they need to thrive in the global digital economy. She believes in an Africa that can thrive, and trusts that Africa’s youth are the driving force to achieve that transformation.

Educational Background

Nthanda Manduwi is currently pursuing her Master of Business Administration (STEM) at the Broad College of Business, Michigan State University, with concentrations in Marketing Management and Business Analytics (Class of 2026). At MSU, she serves as Career Liaison for the Class of ’26, Graduate Teaching Assistant in the College of Engineering, MBA Student Ambassador for the Forté Foundation, and President of the Black MBA Association.

She also holds a Master of Science in Entrepreneurship (Digital Transformation) from the Malawi University of Science and Technology (2024), where her thesis explored The Entrepreneurial Opportunity in Africa’s Digital Transformation: Modelling Information Systems for Development.

Nthanda earned her Bachelor of Social Science in Economics and Demography (Dual Major) from the University of Malawi (2016). Her undergraduate dissertations addressed Gender Earnings Disparities by Occupation in Malawi and The Impact of Women’s Empowerment on the Unmet Need for Family Planning in Malawi.

Her Career Story

Employment History

Nthanda has had a bit of an expedited career spanning (international) public office, private sector, and entrepreneurship. Most recently, Nthanda served as a Business Development & Executive Communications Manager with Microsoft Xbox (2025), where she worked within ID@Xbox to analyze player and market data across 140+ titles, lead global expansion research into emerging economies (EMEA & APAC), and support developer acceleration strategies. This role solidified her expertise in data-driven strategy and corporate global expansion.

Prior to Microsoft, she was selected as one of only 18 professionals worldwide — out of 38,709 applicants — for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Graduate Programme (2022–2024). Based in New York and Torino, she worked as a Knowledge Coordination Analyst with the Global SDG Synthesis Coalition, where she led process reengineering, spearheaded digital transformation initiatives, and helped mobilize $74 million in resources. She also supported evaluation projects as a Statistical Analysis Focal Point and contributed to global knowledge platforms such as the Evaluation Resource Centre (ERC) and AIDA.

Before joining the Graduate Programme, she collaborated with the World Bank, European Union, and GIZ (2021–2022) as a Project Lead on digital transformation initiatives across Africa and Europe. In this role, she co-created digitalskillsforafrica.com, reaching over 500,000 learners, and launched Kwathu Koworking Spaces, which supported over 10,000 young innovators and entrepreneurs.

Her earlier career included serving as a Revenue Officer at the Malawi Revenue Authority (2018–2021), where she managed tax enforcement across 40+ government institutions, gaining insights into governance and compliance at the national level.

Nthanda’s journey began in 2017 with UN Women, where she interned as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Coordination Analyst. There, she designed training tools for women leaders and contributed to capacity-building initiatives in gender and governance — laying the foundation for her lifelong commitment to inclusion, equity, and youth empowerment.

Building on this foundation, she has since founded the Ntha Foundation, Kwathu Kollective, and Bien Corporation Africa, creating one of Africa’s most dynamic youth-driven innovation ecosystems.

Entrepreneurial Story

Building on this foundation of experience across public, multilateral, and corporate sectors, Nthanda turned to entrepreneurship as the most sustainable way to drive systemic change in Africa.

Bien Corporation Africa – From Blog to Media Company

Nthanda’s entrepreneurial journey began in 2013, when she launched a personal blog that documented her travels, food experiences, and reflections. What started as a creative outlet quickly attracted attention from local and international audiences, revealing the power of digital storytelling to shape perceptions and create opportunities.

As her platform grew, so did the demand from businesses, especially in Malawi’s travel and tourism industry, for high-quality content that could position them competitively in global markets. Recognizing this gap, Nthanda transformed her blog into Bien Corporation Africa (BCA) — a creative agency dedicated to producing professional, locally grounded digital content.

The COVID-19 pandemic became a defining moment for Bien’s growth. While many industries struggled, the need for digital-first strategies skyrocketed. BCA pivoted to serve a broader range of clients beyond tourism, helping brands adapt to a world where online presence was not optional but essential. The company became a hub for aggregating local creative talent, producing content at international standards while keeping costs accessible to African businesses.

Today, Bien has expanded into a full-fledged media and creative company, channeling the creative economy into sustainable growth. It provides branding, content production, and digital strategy services while also serving as the commercial backbone of Nthanda’s broader ecosystem, ensuring financial sustainability and scalability for her non-profit and social impact ventures.

Kwathu Kollective – Rooted in Community

When Nthanda graduated from the University of Malawi in 2016, she moved to Lilongwe determined to start her first business. Very quickly, she realized that even in the capital city, the systems to support young entrepreneurs were almost non-existent. That realization sparked her mission: to build the kinds of structures and spaces that she wished had existed for her.

In 2018, she founded the Ntha Foundation in Malawi, piloting programs like the Nyenyezi Fellowship for entrepreneurs and the M’mawa Apprenticeship for graduates entering the workforce. These early efforts demonstrated the power of structured mentorship and training, but they also revealed that a foundation on its own was too narrow a vehicle for the scale of Africa’s challenges.

This insight led to the creation of the Kwathu Kollective — “Kwathu,” meaning home in Chichewa. The Kollective became a youth innovation hub, designed not only to run programs but to provide a home for creativity, collaboration, and digital transformation. Its flagship initiative, Digital Skills for Africa (DSA), has since trained over 500,000 young people across 20 African countries, equipping them with the tools to thrive in the global digital economy.

What began as the seed of an idea at graduation has now grown into one of Africa’s most vibrant community platforms for youth empowerment, proving that collective action can drive sustainable change.

Ntha Foundation – From Malawi to the U.S.

While the Ntha Foundation first took root in Malawi in 2018, it entered its next chapter after Nthanda’s professional journey with the United Nations. Having seen how institutional legitimacy enables global partnerships and funding, she decided to reincorporate the Foundation in the United States as a 501(c)(3) in 2024.

This move gave the Foundation stronger governance and international reach, positioning it as the non-profit anchor of her broader ecosystem. The milestone was marked by a Gala Launch in Redmond, Washington, aligning the Foundation’s new global chapter with Nthanda’s Microsoft journey.

Today, the U.S.-incorporated Ntha Foundation powers two flagship programs under the Kwathu Upgrade umbrella:

the Nyenyezi Fellowship, equipping entrepreneurs with the skills and networks to scale their ventures, and
the M’mawa Apprenticeship, preparing graduates to transition into corporate and professional careers.

By linking its Malawian roots with global legitimacy, the Ntha Foundation is positioned to expand across continents while remaining deeply grounded in Africa. It represents not only the evolution of a blog-turned-foundation but also Nthanda’s belief that education, mentorship, and institutional systems are the keys to unlocking Africa’s future.

Corporation. Here’s a polished draft in the same narrative style as BCA, KK, and NF:

Q2 Corporation – Systems for Africa’s Future

After completing her professional chapter with the United Nations, Nthanda returned to Malawi determined to scale the Ntha Foundation. But she quickly realized that the Foundation, in its current form, was unsustainable. Despite the success of initiatives like Digital Skills for Africa (DSA), which had trained hundreds of thousands across the continent, the economics of EdTech in Africa were (at the time) not viable. There was impact, but little revenue to sustain or grow at scale.

Confronted with this reality, she made the bold decision to pivot into AgTech. Agriculture, she believed, held the key to Africa’s self-sufficiency and economic transformation. But while the vision was clear, she also recognized her own limitations: she lacked the technical and managerial depth required to execute at scale. This self-awareness drove her to pursue her MBA at Michigan State University, with concentrations in Marketing Management and Business Analytics, to strengthen both her business and analytical foundations.

At MSU, life took an unexpected turn. During recruitment season, she was hired by Microsoft Xbox for her MBA internship — a placement that at first seemed like a tangent from her AgTech ambitions. Yet the experience proved transformative. Working within ID@Xbox on global expansion strategy and market insights, she began to see surprising parallels between farming systems and simulation-based game economies.

This insight gave birth to her next venture: Q2 Corporation. While working on Xbox data, she validated that the performance of simulation-style games aligned with her farming model. The revelation was clear: the farming model itself could be gamified as a powerful tool for engagement, training, and transformation.

Thus, Q2 Corporation was designed as a symbiotic enterprise, bridging AgTech and Gaming. On one side, Kwathu Smart Innovation Village Farms would serve as the practical, ground-level model for sustainable agriculture. On the other, Q2 Games would translate those models into interactive platforms, engaging youth and global audiences through gameplay that simulates real-world systems. Together, they form a closed-loop ecosystem, where farming informs gaming, and gaming drives not only awareness, but also education, innovation, and market opportunities in agriculture.

What began as an attempt to scale a non-profit has now evolved into a systems-level enterprise — one that unites education, agriculture, and gaming under a single vision: to future-proof African communities through innovation that is both profitable and impactful.

Biggest Highlights of Nthanda’s Career/Company

Worked as a Business Development Manager with Microsoft Xbox for her MBA Summer Internship, where she learnt much about the gaming industry—knowledge she intends to lean on as I build Q2 Corp, and pivot BCA and KK.
10,000+ youth trained through the Digital Skills for Africa (DSA) initiative, addressing the skills gap in the tech sector.
Built a network of 200+ experienced tech professionals ready to scale and contribute to large-scale digital transformation projects across Africa.
Established Bien Africa, a for-profit entity that channels the skills and workforce developed through Kwathu Kollective into market-ready solutions.
Recognized as one of the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) during the United Nations General Assembly.
Received the Best Youth Empowerment Award at the African Achievement Awards.
Collaborated with governments, NGOs, and international tech firms, expanding digital training to rural communities, with a focus on women and marginalized groups.

Most Interesting Fact About Nthanda’s Career

Kwathu Kollective started with a small training cohort (30) in 2020, which was followed by an expansion to 500 in 2021 in a public-private partnership with the Malawi Government and the World Bank, and has now scaled to impact over 10,000 as of 2024, fostering real workforce development. Despite being a non-profit at inception, the initiative now drives economic empowerment by leveraging 200 tech professionals who are building tech-driven solutions across the continent.

Struggles or Challenges Faced and How They Were Handled

Scaling with Limited Resources
In the early stages, both the Ntha Foundation and Kwathu Kollective lacked the infrastructure to scale nationally. Nthanda overcame this by forging partnerships with governments, donors, and local institutions, allowing youth training to expand into under-resourced areas without heavy overhead costs.

Skepticism About Youth-Led Initiatives
As a young founder, Nthanda often faced doubts about the credibility of her work. She addressed this by delivering measurable outcomes — from Digital Skills for Africa (training 10,000+ youth) to Kwathu Koworking Spaces (supporting 10,000+ entrepreneurs) — demonstrating visible results that won the trust of both public and private partners.

Retention of Skilled Talent
As programs succeeded, many trained professionals were poached by external companies. To keep talent within the ecosystem, Nthanda established Bien Corporation Africa, creating a direct employment pipeline and market-ready solutions built by graduates of her programs.

Sustainability of Non-Profit Models
While impact was high, Nthanda discovered that EdTech in Africa is difficult to sustain commercially. This realization, after years of leading the Ntha Foundation and DSA, pushed her to pivot into AgTech and Gaming through Q2 Corporation, where innovation could be both impactful and profitable.

Future Plans and Goals

The future of Nthanda’s work lies in scaling her integrated ecosystem — Q2 Corporation, Ntha Foundation, Kwathu Kollective, and Bien Corporation Africa — to create systems that are both impactful and sustainable.

Digital Skills & Workforce Development: Scale Digital Skills for Africa (DSA) to train 5,000,000 youth by 2030, equipping them with globally competitive digital skills.
Tech Talent Pipeline: Grow the network of 200+ tech professionals to 1,000, creating a talent pool capable of delivering large-scale innovation projects across the continent.
Bien Africa: Expand Bien into a pan-African digital powerhouse, offering creative, branding, and tech solutions built by Africans for global markets.
Kwathu Hubs: Establish Kwathu innovation hubs in at least 10 African countries, serving as localized centers for digital literacy, entrepreneurship, and collaboration.
Q2 Corporation: Scale Q2 as a symbiotic enterprise in AgTech and Gaming, with Kwathu Farms as a sustainable agricultural model and Q2 Games as a global platform that gamifies real-world systems, making Africa’s challenges and opportunities interactive and engaging.

By 2030, this ecosystem will demonstrate that Africa’s greatest asset — its youth — can drive both social impact and profitable innovation, building systems that future-proof communities and connect them to global markets.

Leadership Positions

Founder & CEO – Q2 Corporation | Driving Africa’s future in AgTech and Gaming.
Founder & CEO – Bien Corporation Africa | Building Africa’s creative and digital economy.
Founder & CEO – Ntha Foundation | U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit empowering youth across Africa.
Founder & CEO – Kwathu Kollective | Innovation and skills hub for digital transformation.
Business Development & Executive Communications Manager – Microsoft Xbox (ID@Xbox) | Global gaming expansion and developer acceleration.
Evaluation Analyst & Knowledge Coordination Analyst – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) | Global SDG Synthesis Coalition, digital transformation, and evaluation.
Project Lead – World Bank | Digital Malawi Project.
MBA Ambassador – Forté Foundation, Michigan State University | Representing the Broad College of Business.
President – Black MBA Association, Broad College of Business | Leading inclusion and representation in business leadership.

Fellowships, Awards & Recognitions

MIPAD “40 Under 40” Honoree – Recognized among the Most Influential People of African Descent during the United Nations General Assembly.
Most Inspiring Female Corporate Leader in Malawi – Honored for her leadership and contributions to youth empowerment.
Best Youth Empowerment Award – African Achievement Awards.
Leadership Award – Broad College of Business, Michigan State University MBA Program.
UNDP Graduate Programme Fellow – Selected as one of only 18 professionals worldwide out of 38,709 applicants for the UNDP Graduate Programme (2022).
Forté Foundation MBA Ambassador – Representing the Broad College of Business, Michigan State University.
President – Black MBA Association, Michigan State University (Class of 2026).

Conferences & Speaking Engagements

Programme of Action for Youth – United Nations, New York (2025) – Panelist on global youth innovation and digital transformation (25 September).
African Graduate Students Association (AGSA) Conference – Michigan State University (2025) – Presented her first MSc thesis on Africa’s digital transformation and entrepreneurship.
Academic & Leadership Conference – Malawi University of Science and Technology (2025) – Keynote address on entrepreneurship, leadership, and the role of youth in Africa’s digital economy.
Youth Connekt Africa Summit (2024) – Featured speaker on Skilling Africa.
Saint Andrews International High School, Malawi (2024) – Keynote speaker on education, leadership, and innovation.
Africa Day Celebration – Moroccan Embassy (2024) – Guest speaker on the future of Africa’s creative and digital economy.
Startup Masterclass (2022) – Invited speaker on entrepreneurship and digital skills in Africa.

Nthanda’s Books

The Tens Series

By The End of Your Teens (2018)
Traversing the Terrible Twenties (2025)

The Lessons Series (upcoming)

Lessons (2026)
Beggars in Suits (2026)
Systemic Nonsense (2026)
Impossible Economies (2026)
So Wrong for So Long (2026)
We are Still at War (2026)
Now What (2026)

Standalone Books

Feminine Silence (2025)
Lady at the Helm (2026)
Balance (2027)

Why You Should Care About Nthanda Work

Nthanda’s work is a living example of Africa’s entrepreneurial and digital potential. Rooted in Malawi yet global in scope, her initiatives show that when young Africans are given the tools, spaces, and systems to thrive, they can shape industries, economies, and futures.

Through the Ntha Foundation, Kwathu Kollective, and Digital Skills for Africa (DSA), she has trained over 10,000 young Africans directly and reached more than 500,000 learners online, building a sustainable pipeline of 200+ tech professionals across the continent. With Bien Corporation Africa, she has created a commercial pathway for talent to deliver market-ready digital and creative solutions. And with Q2 Corporation, she is building the next frontier — a symbiotic model in AgTech and Gaming that bridges Africa’s most traditional sector with its most dynamic new industry.

Her vision is not just about programs or companies, but about proving that social impact and profitability can coexist. By reinvesting in the communities she serves, she is creating a model where youth empowerment drives economic transformation. For her, Malawi is more than a starting point: it is proof that even in under-resourced settings, Africa’s young women and men can build globally relevant solutions.

Nthanda’s work represents a movement of young Africans ready to lead the digital economy, ensuring the continent is not only included in global systems but is actively shaping them.

Watch here Nthanda’s speech at Youth Connekt Africa 2024 Summit, where She speaks on the pertinence of Skilling Africa.

Partner with Nthanda

Nthanda’s work is built on the belief that transformational change requires collective action. Through her ventures — Q2 Corporation, Bien Corporation Africa, the Ntha Foundation, and Kwathu Kollective — she is building interconnected systems that empower Africa’s youth, scale sustainable solutions, and position African talent in global markets.

She welcomes partnerships with:

Corporates & Investors looking to support or scale innovative AgTech, Gaming, and Creative Economy ventures.
Governments & Development Agencies committed to advancing youth empowerment, digital literacy, and systems transformation across Africa.
Academic Institutions interested in research collaborations, knowledge exchange, and empowering the next generation of African scholars and leaders.
Foundations & Donors seeking sustainable, scalable models that combine social impact with profitability.

Contact Details:nthanda@q2corporation.com | nthanda@biencorp.com | nthanda@kwathu.org | nthanda@nthafoundation.org

Stay in touch with Nthanda online! Find her various social media platforms below: