The World's 50 Greatest Leaders

Rank
47
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Bright Simons

Bright Simons
Bright Simons, technology innovator, development activist and President of the mPedigree Network, speaking at the Launch event of The Web Index 2013, at Reed Smith London Office, Broadgate Tower, London. UK. 22/11/2013. Taking the format of a country ranking, the annual Web Index (thewebindex.org) is the world's first measure of the growth, freedom and utility of the World Wide Web in 81 countries.James Veysey — Camera Press/Redux
  • Title
    President, Founder
  • Affiliation
    Mpedigree
  • Age
    34

Counterfeit drugs are rife in Africa—one estimate pegs the chances of purchasing one at 30%, and in 2013 more than 120,000 African children died because of poor-quality anti­malarials. Simons, a 34-year-old entrepreneur from Ghana, offered a boldly simple solution: Africans could check the authenticity of medications by sending mPedigree a text message with the special 12-digit code marked on their drug packet. Now mPedigree has its labels on more than 500 million packets, with clients including giants AstraZeneca and Sanofi. The company is currently active in 12 countries in the developing world.