Jeff Ayako
Kenyan innovator Jeff Ayako has packed a decade’s worth of breakthroughs into just 24 years. While still a third-year engineering student at Kenyatta University, he launched Marpcadark, a rapid-prototyping firm that built components for Africa’s first indigenous mechanical ventilator, work that earned him a coveted Head of State Commendation at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Ayako now splits his days between Marpcadark’s buzzing Nairobi workshop and the Kenya Space Agency’s clean room, where he is leading a team of aerospace-engineering students in designing a nanosatellite that will map crop stress and flash-flood zones for farmers and disaster-response teams.
A relentless recruiter of young talent, Ayako has already hired 60 interns and apprentices, vowing to create 3,000 youth jobs by the time he turns 28 through localized manufacturing of medical devices, drone parts, and Internet-of-Things sensors. Investors credit his knack for fusing frugal hardware design with data-driven applications; mentors praise his conviction that “Kenya’s next export is ingenuity, not raw materials.” With the nanosatellite scheduled for low-Earth orbit in 2026 and a new facility breaking ground in Naivasha, Ayako is positioning Marpcadark—and the country’s rising generation of makers, to prove that global-grade innovation can be built, launched, and scaled from African soil.