The Francis DeGaulle Njie Foundation is a charitable organisation registered under the Company’s Act of the Laws of The Gambia. The Foundation was initially setup by the family of the late DeGaulle, as he was fondly referred to by friends and associates, in commemoration of the values of excellence and dedication to service that he stood for throughout his short but very exemplary life.

FRANCIS'S BIOGRAPHY

Francis DeGaulle Njie was born on 27th November 1970, in Banjul,The Gambia.He was educated in Banjul, at Ola Ndow’s Kindergarten, Saint Joseph’s Prep School, Sukuta Primary School, Saint Augustine’s High School and Gambia High School, where he was always top of his class in every academic discipline.
Click the PDF icon to view Francis's Testimonial

His ferocious competitive spirit and thirst for excellence won him numerous accolades and awards during his educational career. He sat his GCE “O” levels in 1988, and was the first Gambian to score a distinction in all eight subjects.  He then completed his “A” levels at Gambia High School, where he was head boy, and in 1990 he received college acceptance into one of the top universities in the United States, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

There he excelled among the best of the best students in the world and continued his hard work and pursuit of excellence. Having graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Science and Engineering, his professional career began when he became a Computer Programmer of Derivative Financial Models at Swiss Bank Corporation (now UBS Warburg - a prestigious investment bank), in Chicago in 1995. In 1996, he underwent surgery for a brain tumour and valiantly overcame the illness to proceed with his life, building a very successful career.

Later that year, he accepted a position at Perkin-Elmer Informatics Corporation, a biotechnology company based in San Jose, California.  In 2001, he obtained a Masters of Science degree in Operations Research at the London School of Economics (LSE). He returned to the U.S. in the January 2002 and joined Calypso Technology, an IT solutions company based in San Francisco, California.
He resigned in July of the same year to pursue his personal IT dreams, working as an Independent Software Consultant.
Even ill health could not force him to forego his dreams and he continued to work on his projects whenever he felt even slightly better – until a few weeks before his death on May 22nd 2005.