Founders
Meet the men behind one of the first Usap student-run groups/organizations – Dominic Mhiripiri and Ike Gapara. The two are Usap participants, who despite lending their names to the organization, plan for its future growth to include many other people who share the same goals and values.
Dominic Tsabora Mhiripiri
Ike Siyenzile Gapara
Dominic Mhiripiri
Brown University 12'
Dominic Mhiripiri is a talented Adventist and Zimbabwean student studying at Brown University in Providence, USA - as a participant of the United States Student Achievers (Usap) in Zimbabwe and one with the distinct honor of being the first recipient of the prestigious Advancing Africa Scholarship at the Ivy League university. An amazing curiosity of the world around him, academic excellence, awe-inspiring triumphs the great challenges he faced in his life and uniquely creative leadership amongst his peers have made Dominic a man who stands out.
Dominic was born in May 1989 in the Zimbabwean town of Chitungwiza, where he grew up and got most of his early education. He attended Zengeza 4 High School, where as a student leader, district [state] champion in debate, quiz and public speaking as well as an activist, he became a foremost student at the school in his generation. Dominic was awarded an exclusive academic full scholarship to pursue Advanced Level studies at ILSA College in Harare, where he was to become the school's first student to be accepted into the Usap program in 2007. The program facilitated Dominic's whole college application process and enrollment at Brown.
In Usap, Mhiripiri is at home and believes that the program is a primary commitment of his. As co-founder of Dee & Ike, a powerful student group, he has helped bring more creative ideas and initiatives into the program. Dominic has been a peer mentor, a writer for the Usap website, the valedictorian for his Usap graduating class and serves on the organizing committee of the 2009 Usap Annual Conference.
At Brown, Dominic is a prospective concentrator in Applied Math – Economics who also has strong interest in the school's Political Science and International Relations programs. He has directed an A.S.E.A.N. committee during the 2008 Brown University Simulation of the United Nations conference, is a member of the African Students Association and top scorer of his championship-winning intramural soccer team. He enjoys writing poetry and fiction in ChiShona and English, and has regularly penned academic and political opinion pieces in Zimbabwean newspapers in the last two years. Dominic is obsessed by traveling, photography, acapella music and "the team for which soccer was made"– Manchester United.
Ike Gapara
University of Pennsylvania 12'
Ike, the first of two children, was born in Harare but grew up in the small Midlands town of Redcliff. He attended primary school in nearby Kwekwe before enrolling at Kutama College near Norton for both his Ordinary and Advanced Level studies. He worked at Spar Redcliff (Jan-Feb 2008) and Cargill Zimbabwe (Mar-June 2008) after completing his high school studies.
Ike has a passion for mathematics and represented Zimbabwe in mathematics competitions in South Africa in September 2006, and Nigeria in April 2007 where he earned Honorable mentions on both occasions. Ike claims the best time of his life came on the Nigerian trip when his passport was stolen, and together with the rest of the Zimbabwean contingent, had to stay in Ethiopia for an extra week and a half. He has also represented his province in provincial cricket tournaments. He was also very active in school as head of several clubs but loved being CEO of the Company of Kutama (a student investment arm for the school) the most.
At Penn, Ike was selected as a member of the Entrepreneurs' Program, and this is the first step to his dream of founding his own company by the time he graduates, impossible as it may seem. At the Wharton School, he hopes to major in Finance and Actuarial Science and then venture into the investments and banking businesses. The young man is ambitious and hopes to build schools of excellence, world-class hospitals and other infrastructure throughout Africa with the hope of giving opportunity to the amazing talent in Africa, just as he was given opportunity through Usap and a scholarship from Penn. Ike believes that: "Things come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle", (Abraham Lincoln), and so looks forward to grabbing all the opportunities that will come his way at Penn, and afterwards. His sense of adventure makes him want to go to space, and do many daredevil acts in the near future, because life is too short, really.