Bruktawit Tigabu began her professional career as a primary school teacher in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Determined to improve the conditions of children in the country, she looked for ways to educate children on a mass scale. In 2005, she co-established, with her husband, the educational multimedia enterprise Whiz Kids Workshop. Working from their living room, using sock puppets, computer graphics and their own voices, they began producing Tsehai Loves Learning, the first educational preschool television programme in the country.

Whiz Kids Workshop has gone on to develop further programmes and win numerous international awards such as the Next Generation Prize at Prix Jeunesse International (2008) and the Japan Prize International Contest for Educational Media (2008, 2009). Brukty has been widely recognized for her work, becoming a Rolex Young Laureate in 2010, one of Fast Company’s 2012 most creative people in business, and one of the Schwab Foundation’s 2018 Social Entrepreneur of the Year Awardees. She is also a founding member of Social Enterprise Ethiopia.