Dr. Yanick Kemayou is Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer of Kabakoo Academies, a research and implementation WorkTech making peer-based, AI-enabled upskilling work for West African youth. Kabakoo combines a multilingual AI Mentor, peer groups, mindset development, and real-world projects to strengthen learners’ agency and economic capabilities.

Dr. Kemayou leads Kabakoo’s research and learning innovation, including its “Highdigenous” approach, which fuses frontier technologies with African knowledge systems. Through Labs focused on food systems, regenerative architecture, and textiles, Kabakoo works with knowledge holders and learners to transform endogenous value chains into replicable curricula. This expertise enables Kabakoo to partner with public institutions and governments, including on an ongoing national initiative to upskill 15,000 young people across Mali.

Born and raised in Cameroon, Dr. Kemayou went from working as a street vendor in Yaoundé to earning a PhD in Economics from Paderborn University and teaching at the Sorbonne and the University of Vienna. His work explores how culturally grounded learning can expand economic agency while strengthening the institutions that support human-capital development.