Diébédo Francis Kéré. Born in 1965 in Burkina Faso, Francis Kéré was the first native of the village of Gando to study abroad. He graduated from the architecture school of the Technische Universität Berlin, where with the help of friends he founded the “Schulbausteine für Gando” (bricks for the Gando school). Through this association he was able to raise the funds necessary to give his hometown a Primary School. Erected by the villagers themselves, in 2004 it won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Besides running his own architectural office, set up in 2005, Kéré is a lecturer at the TU of Berlin. His main interests are housing and urban development, climatic optimization of buildings, sustainable use of materials, and the application of local building techniques. He is currently busy with several projects, mostly schools in Gando and Ouagadougou.