PROMISE Labs Africa 2025 Microgrant Awardees
We are pleased to officially announce the recipients of the inaugural PROMISE Labs Africa Microgrant Award. Each researcher will receive ₦100,000 to conduct behavioral economics research addressing real challenges in Nigerian communities.
The selection process was competitive, but these three awardees stood out for the strength of their applications, the originality of their research questions, and the potential for their work to drive meaningful impact in their communities.
Ishaya Bitrus Wudiri
Project: The Anchor Effect: Optimizing Health Subsidy Design for Long-Term Child Health Adherence in Gwange, Maiduguri.
Ishaya Bitrus Wudiri is a nursing student at the University of Maiduguri with a focused interest in health data science and evidence-based public health research. His experience includes designing automated reporting systems and conducting statistical analysis on large healthcare datasets. He has supported collaborations between government entities and development partners that contributed to improved data collection processes and more efficient reporting workflows. His work reflects a strong interest in using data to inform practical public health decision-making.
Yewande Lydia Olubodun
Project: Investigating the Challenges Students Face in Mathematics: Factors Contributing to Difficulty
Yewande Lydia Olubodun is an educator and the founder of April Initiatives, a non-governmental organization focused on community empowerment. She works as a mathematics tutor and adolescent educator, combining classroom experience with a strong interest in understanding learning barriers. Yewande brings careful attention to detail and an applied perspective to research, drawing on her background in education to examine factors contributing to academic difficulty.
Ikwu Joseph Mariam
Project: Affordable Health Insurance for Low-Income Nigerians.
Ikwu Joseph Mariam is a data analyst and research professional with experience in data analytics, quality assurance, and research and development across pharmaceutical and business contexts. His work focuses on transforming data into actionable insights to support evidence-based decision-making and organizational learning. His current research interests lie at the intersection of artificial intelligence, social data, and economic behavior.
What Happens Next
Awardees have completed human subjects research ethics training and participated in an initial training session on adapting HPT methodology to their specific research questions. They have also received their first disbursement of ₦50,000 to begin fieldwork.
As researchers collect and prepare their data, the PROMISE Labs Africa team will conduct at least one additional training session focused on data analysis techniques. The remaining ₦50,000 will be released upon submission of final deliverables, including a 2–4 page research brief and a presentation of findings to the PROMISE Labs Africa team.
We congratulate the awardees again and look forward to supporting these researchers over the coming months and sharing their findings with the broader community. PROMISE Labs Africa remains committed to enabling early-stage, locally grounded research that contributes to practical understanding and policy-relevant insights across the continent.