Taddy Blecher

Taddy Blecher has spent three decades in the free higher education movement in South Africa, and has been interviewed hundreds of times. He’s also told a lot of stories. Like how he taught students to type 30 words a minute on photocopies of computer keyboards. Or how he taught meditation to high school pupils in Alexandra. Or how he wants to build a full-sized soccer pitch in the Johannesburg CBD. But his latest venture, building what he calls “Education Town” in downtown Joburg, which, if he succeeds, will eventually be home to 100 000 students, and building one in every African country, is probably what he’s going to be remembered for.

Blecher qualified as an actuary at Wits in 1992, and, in his telling, had bought a plane ticket to take up a job in the US, but decided to stay behind. He’s won a number of awards, from the World Economic Forum and Skoll Foundation, among many others, and has raised hundreds of millions of rands for local education initiatives. A slight man with a shock of unruly black hair, The Economist noted a resemblance to Harry Potter in its 2007 profile “The transcendental crusader”.