Former schoolteacher Bruktawit Tigabu is an unlikely media mogul.

But on Ethiopian TV and radio, Tigabu has become a major force in improving kids’ lives.

Tigabu’s Addis Ababa-based production company, Whiz Kids Workshop, produces children’s TV shows that promote early education, literacy, health education, and gender equality. Among them: Tsehai Loves Learning, Ethiopia’s first educational TV preschool program; Little Investigators, the country’s first kid-oriented science show; and the recently launched animated series Tibeb Girls.

Tigabu, raised in poverty, had no intention of becoming something of a media magnate. But after three years as an elementary school teacher, Tigabu realized that she needed a bigger venue to address widespread illiteracy and hygiene issues, as well as the mortality rate—over 300,000 Ethiopian children