Hakeem Subair has been Chief Executive Officer of 1 Million Teachers (1MT)  for seven years.  Hakeem is responsible for the overall direction of 1MT, which currently supports about 38,000 teachers across 19 countries, of which 16 are in Sub-Saharan Africa. Focusing on the most under-resourced communities across the world, 1MT empowers teachers to enhance learning outcomes for students through various reward-based teacher professional development programs. 1MT’s primary objective is to increase access to quality training and professional development for teachers by attracting new teachers to the teaching profession; providing training to untrained teachers who are active in the classroom, but unable to access formal training due to financial or geographic barriers or other constraints; and providing ongoing professional development to teachers, thus encouraging continuous and lifelong learning and development.

1MT’s recent work includes implementing a UNICEF, Global Partnership for Education and Federal Government of Nigeria intervention to provide remedial classes to out of school students and those impacted by COVID closures in three states of Nigeria.  

A member of the Golden Key International Honour Society, and an Adjunct Professor at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Canada, Hakeem has at various times taught Innovation and Change Management, Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship, International Business, and Small Business Consulting at the college. Hakeem was also a student advisor in the Master of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MMIE) program at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University in Canada where he had earlier graduated. Hakeem is also a trustee of the MSII SDG Fund, which utilises social entrepreneurship principles and systems thinking to support teachers through the stages of ideation, project implementation, and achieving scale in their social impact projects.   

Some of the key challenges Hakeem wants to focus on during the fellowship include how barriers to internet connectivity can be eliminated for teachers and their students, how to keep teachers engaged and excited about their work and professional development, and how female educators who form the bulk of the teaching profession can be adequately represented in educational leadership.

Hakeem hopes the fellowship will help 1MT to better articulate its big questions around EdTech, deepen its knowledge of digital strategy, policy, governance, and develop holistic models for using EdTech to improve learning outcomes at scale.