Francois Malherbe MI’21 is a Fjällräven sponsored explorer for Africa with a career coaching background. As a ‘chief curiosity officer’, he founded The Curiosity Company to equip young explorers to navigate a fast changing world of work by conserving the instinct to explore. Francois also did his Nature Guide and Trails Guide training through the African Guide Academy. He uses the ancient art of tracking wild animals on foot to teach the principles and fundamentals of curiosity and complex problem solving. Curiosity Company aims to understand how ancient solutions can be used to solve modern problems. He serves on the board of directors of Lesson in Conservation NGO, and spends most of his time between Cape Town, the Okavango Delta and the Kruger National Park.

Laly Lichtenfeld FI’17 co-founded African People & Wildlife in 2005 to empower rural communities to conserve and benefit from their surrounding wildlife and natural resources. A 20-year resident of Tanzania, Laly specializes in holistic, landscape-level approaches to conservation and community development. As one of the few female CEOs in East African conservation, she is also passionate about elevating rural women as environmental leaders and drivers of social change in their communities. Laly received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2005. She is an accomplished speaker, a Distinguished Alumna of the Yale Tropical Resources Institute, a National Geographic Explorer, a recipient of the 2016 Lowell Thomas Award for Open Space Conservation from the historic Explorers Club, and a 2019 Women of Discovery Awardee. In 2019, Laly was honored to be named a “Woman of Impact” by the National Geographic Society and featured among some of the world’s leading female visionaries in Women of Impact: Changing the World, a one-hour documentary aired on the National Geographic Channel.

Dr. Gerrit Louw FI ’20 is an Earth Scientist turned sailor. As co-founder and Director of Allspice Yachting he has facilitated more than 20 000 nautical miles of southern Atlantic pelagic expeditions with various clientele. In 2023 he will set sail for the Ocean Globe Race, a retro round the world yacht race that only allows pre-1973 technology and traditional navigation techniques (i.e. no GPS or modern weather routing is permitted).

John has spent the last decade managing first of a kind expeditions and projects across the African Continent.  As a conservationist, he has work across various disciplines conducting base line data studies with regards to predator prey relations, river health and human wildlife conflict, but his main body of work has managed through his organization explore4knowledge.

This can be mainly explained as “promoting a multi-disciplinary” approach to addressing behavior change issues linked to climate change, with a focus on environmental education, holistic learning, the pursuit of curiosity and leveraging digital media through story telling. His expedition, projects and campaigns have resulted in the team receiving awards for innovation and community development, alongside the non for profit efforts that reach 100 000 learns annually, and distribute over 10 000 prescription glasses to rural communities. For more information please follow our channels across all digital media @explore4knowledge.