Dr Norah Clarke

Norah Clarke’s career path in education and entrepreneurship has been characterised by building bridges between the public and private sector. She has been responsible for founding and implementing the Department of Higher Education and Training’s Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) Programme in 2017, which is aimed at addressing issues of graduate unemployment and developing entrepreneurial universities. 

As Director: Entrepreneurship, Norah heads up the EDHE office, which is managed through the representative organisation of the public universities in SA, Universities South Africa (USAf). Norah holds a doctorate in the Psychology of Education and a masters degree in Tertiary and Adult Education (cum laude) from the University of Johannesburg. 

She also attained a baccalaureus degree in Education and an honours degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria. She later joined the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment for a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Engineering Education. She remains involved in postgraduate academic supervision. 

In previous positions at the University of Johannesburg, Norah played a leading role in commercialisation, tech incubation and start-up initiatives. She joined the University of Johannesburg’s Technology Transfer Office and was seconded to Resolution Circle, the university’s technology commercialisation company, of which she was a founding member and Group Senior Manager: Training and Collaboration. Norah also established a technology business incubator at Resolution Circle. 

Norah has been an invited speaker on the topics of entrepreneurship and resilience on various occasions, has authored and co-authored a number of academic papers, and continues to serve on pitching and start-up evaluation panels. As an entrepreneur, she conceptualised and co-founded a private primary school and two lifestyle start-ups.