This month, Ayele Shakur, BUILD CEO, received the 2021 National Alliance of Black School Educators (NASBE) Hall of Fame Award!
NABSE is the nation’s premier nonprofit organization devoted to furthering the academic success for the nation’s children – particularly children of African descent. This award is bestowed upon individuals who have undergone great personal and professional sacrifice in the service of educational advancement for African Americans.
"I am honored to have been chosen by NASBE and I deeply appreciate the organizing committee for recognizing my work. This award is a reminder that together we can build entrepreneurial leaders and learners, and create a public education system that delivers on the promise of equity and excellence."
Under Ayele’s leadership, BUILD.org has partnered with Comcast NBCUniversal to provide its free digital entrepreneurship curriculum for middle and high school students across the country. She also created and launched BUILD.org’s Campus Without Walls initiative, an innovative program that promotes greater equity, access and opportunity by allowing students to Zoom into classes taught by talented teachers all across the state, regardless of the student’s assigned school.
Ayele brings over three decades of experience as an innovator in urban education. A veteran classroom educator, she taught for 11 years in the Los Angeles area and in the Boston Public Schools, and her writing has also been featured in The Hill, WBUR, Commonwealth, and Entrepreneur Magazine. A native of Boston, she holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Boston University and a Master’s degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.
