1. Mpule Keneilwe Kwelagobe was born on 14 November 1979 and is a Motswana investor, businesswoman, model, and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Universe 1999.
15 Facts About Mpule Kwelagobe
1. 2.
Mpule Kwelagobe was the first black African woman to win one of the Big Four international beauty pageants, the first woman from Botswana to win, and the first from a nation making their debut in nearly four decades.
3.
Mpule Kwelagobe is the co-founder of QuesS Capital LLC, a private equity firm with investments in financial services, renewable energy and agriculture in Africa and South Asia.
4.
Mpule Kwelagobe comes from the Tswana ethnic group, and her native language is Tswana.
5.
Mpule Kwelagobe attended Lobatse Senior Secondary School in Lobatse, and Columbia University in New York City, graduating with a degree in international political economy.
6.
Mpule Kwelagobe began her education at Columbia in 2002, two years after finishing her reign as Miss Universe.
7.
Mpule Kwelagobe began her career in modeling and pageantry as a teenager.
8.
Mpule Kwelagobe became the youngest woman to win Miss Botswana, at only 17.
9.
Mpule Kwelagobe returned to pageantry two years later, being crowned Miss Universe Botswana 1999, becoming the inaugural holder of the title.
10.
Mpule Kwelagobe subsequently became the first woman to represent Botswana in the Miss Universe competition, competing in Miss Universe 1999 in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago.
11.
In November 2000, Kwelagobe launched the MPULE Foundation and continued to tour her country to promote behavioral change among the youth.
12.
In 2001, Mpule Kwelagobe received the Jonathan Mann Health Human Rights Award by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care.
13.
In 2011, Kwelagobe founded the MPULE Institute for Endogenous Development, a New York City-based advocacy.
14.
In 2015, Mpule Kwelagobe signed an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for; the letter was addressed to Angela Merkel and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the G7 in Germany and the African Union in South Africa respectively.
15.
Mpule Kwelagobe sits on the board of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a pan-African network of Centers of Excellence in mathematical sciences founded by 2008 TED Prize winner and quantum physicist, Professor Neil Turok.