Resilience and innovation – Rising Scholars empowers Tanzanian social entrepreneur to lead climate action

Across East Africa, climate change threatens food security, biodiversity, and the wellbeing of millions. Local solutions rooted in community knowledge and sustainable practice are urgently needed, but too often early career researchers and innovators struggle to access the resources and networks they need to bring their ideas to life. Rising Scholars, hosted by INASP, aims to help researchers overcome these barriers by connecting them to the knowledge, tools and support needed to find solutions to complex climate challenges.

A vision for community transformation

For Tanzanian researcher and social entrepreneur, Dauson Msumange, the Rising Scholars platform has been a catalyst in strengthening his skills and forging new collaborations as he works with local communities to increase climate awareness and resilience.

Dauson Msumange is the founder and director of the Tanzania Eco-Tech and Conservation Hub (TEACH), an organisation dedicated to piloting and sharing regenerative technologies with local communities in the fields of conservation, agroecology, and climate change. His vision has always been to use knowledge as a force for community transformation.

“From an early age, I understood that education was not just a pathway to personal success but a powerful tool to transform communities.”

Strengthening community resilience

Through TEACH, Dauson is helping to strengthen community resilience and environmental awareness across Tanzania. His organisation integrates sustainability principles into project design and delivery, reaching local farmers, youth, and community leaders through training and hands-on initiatives.

Recent activities have included a month-long capacity building training programme for ten women on the production of circular storage bags, as well as participation in two community dialogues that brought together 100 participants, including farmers, elders, government officials and researchers, to discuss climate change trends and how scientific and indigenous knowledge can work together to address them.

Finding opportunities through Rising Scholars

For Dauson, his career path was never straightforward. Financial challenges meant he was unable to complete his master’s degree and turned instead to open access resources and online learning opportunities to keep developing his skills.
Joining the Rising Scholars community gave Dauson the chance to keep advancing his career, with free courses and peer networks that built his confidence and deepened his commitment to community action. When he found Rising Scholars, he found more than just training. His first course, on grant proposal writing, equipped him with practical skills and gave him a sense of shared purpose within a wider community.

Dauson and a colleague doing an underground water survey using a locally made machine

“When I joined Rising Scholars, I saw more than just recognition of my academic achievements. I saw a community of equal inspiration, shared learning and mentorship to all.”

For Dauson, Rising Scholars was about more than just gaining knowledge; it was about belonging to a network of “dreamers and doers”, a community made possible by the platform’s commitment to collective learning.

“Leadership is not only being on the frontline. It’s how you can strategically solve direct and indirect problems that might hinder success within the community you are leading. You can be a mentor and at the same time a mentee depending on the opportunity ahead.”

From local action to global collaboration

The impact on Dauson’s work has been significant. In addition to founding TEACH, in 2022 he participated in the Scaling for Impact workshop, contributing to the Engineering for One Planet Framework. This global initiative is shaping how environmental sustainability is embedded into engineering curricula worldwide, and support from Rising Scholars enabled Dauson to bring vital Global South perspectives into the debate. He has also made sure to pass his learning on, contributing back to the Rising Scholars community by sharing his experiences and supporting other researchers.

“I send my sincere gratitude to all Rising Scholars who acknowledge the platform as a pathway for learning, sharing research gaps, research documents, as well as innovation and creativity in all angles.”

Continuing to share knowledge and inspire others

Through Rising Scholars, Dauson was able to access free courses, mentorship, and peer networks to strengthen his skills and advance his work – helping inspire new thinking and innovative solutions to Tanzania’s climate-related challenges.

TEACH’s initiatives, including a career guidance and incubation programme for young people and the production of circular storage bags alongside on-the-job technical training, are helping communities adopt more circular, sustainable practices and improve livelihoods. And, in collaboration with partners in Tanzania and India, Dauson is also contributing to the goal of achieving water and carbon neutrality across Africa through professional development programmes.

With the support of Rising Scholars, Dauson has the knowledge, tools and guidance needed to help communities adapt as they face the challenges of a changing climate. Most recently, he contributed to regional efforts to expand access to knowledge, helping prepare materials for an online course on open access research in East Africa and co-translating the Framework of Open Reproducible Research and Teaching (FORRT) glossary into Swahili. His commitment to education, innovation and leadership is keeping climate adaptation knowledge practical and relevant, showing how early career researchers, when supported, can turn ideas into actions that benefit entire communities.

Impact through Rising Scholars

• Advancing locally relevant climate knowledge. Through Rising Scholars, INASP provides a flexible programme of online resources that enables researchers and community innovators like Dauson to strengthen their skills, deepen their confidence and forge new collaborations, inspiring new thinking and new solutions to climate-related challenges.
• Strengthening local and global climate resilience: Over the last three years, INASP has enabled 23,000 researchers to gain new knowledge and strengthen their skills so that they can create relevant and rigorous knowledge to tackle the growing complexity of global challenges. By engaging with Rising Scholars courses and networks, Dauson Msumange gained the tools and confidence needed to contribute to global sustainability initiatives.
• Equipping young scholars to put critical research into practice where it’s needed the most. INASP has been working in partnership with universities, research institutions and their staff for over 30 years, building specialised expertise in the Global South. Rising Scholars has an 18-year history of finding new ways to bridge the learning gap for early career scholars.

Title image: Dauson performing a soil fertility test