At an early age, Kalkidan Negash Obse discovered his interest in politics and democracy. Not surprisingly, as he witnessed the beginnings of democracy in Ethiopia as a young man in the 1990s.

He started to study law and left Africa to acquire his Master’s degree in Miami. There he specialized in the field of human rights. Finally, in Austria, as a scholarship holder of the programme, he finished his PhD in 2015. Back in Ethiopia he became scientific director and finally president of Dilla University in the south of the country.

What it means to be president of a young African university, which challenges he faces, but also which experiences he gained from his time as a (human) law researcher you will hear in this issue of Alumni AudioLab.

APPEAR is a programme of the Austrian Development Cooperation