Class 32

Mohamed has more than five years of experience in the Information Technology sector, and earned a Bachelor’s of Computer Engineering from the Islamic University of Gaza in Palestine. Mohamed played a large role in building two successful startups as a senior software engineer for a Kuwaiti company. Previously, Mohamed worked as a Full-Stack web developer for a multinational company based in Saudi Arabia, helping to build their startup. Mohamed has volunteered with U.S. General Consulate in Jerusalem with a program called “Youth Leaders Rise”, working to support youth and build future leaders. Through these experiences he developed a strong knowledge and background in Software Engineering, working well with a team. Mohamed enjoys new challenges and exploring the Information Technology sector.

Host Organization: Hatch Apps

Fellow role at Hatch Apps: Mohamed will serve as a Software Developer, helping to inexpensively build scalable mobile and web apps. The focus on this role will be building new features and iterating on customer feedback.

Swarnima Shrestha is a Development Communications professional with nine years of experience in the field. She has a master’s degree in Development Communications and a Master of Arts in English Literature. Swarnima has a wide range of experience of leading communication initiatives in different organizations. Most recently, she served at UN Capital Development Fund as Communications and Knowledge Management expert. Prior to that she worked at UNICEF Nepal serving in the most severely affected locations after the Nepal earthquake 2015. Swarnima started her career as a producer of an extremely popular radio program called ‘Chatting with my best Friend’ which addressed the pressing issues faced by youths, especially those related to sexual and reproductive health.  Being involved in this highly listened to radio program made her a popular voice among millions of Nepalese youths and provided her with an opportunity to understand different social issues. She has experience of working in various sectors such a gender, HIV and AIDS, child rights, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and emergency communications. In her personal life, Swarnima is involved in the social sector through volunteer and advocacy activities. This includes acting as President of the Rotaract club of Baneshwor Royal, an international youth club, and co-founding the Snowyak Foundation, which helps support the education of marginalized children in the remote part of the upper Dolpa region of Nepal.

Host: IANGEL

Fellow role at IANGEL: Swarnima will serve as a Communications & Fundraising Fellow, playing an integral role in external communications and in creating social media and website content. She will maintain high quality fundraising systems, helping to plan and execute donor events.

Walid has 8 years of experience in the nonprofit sector with specialty in the fields of project management, monitoring and evaluation, and fundraising. Walid has a Bachelor’s in Software Engineering and a Master’s in Business Administration. In his work as Programs Manager at the Culture and Free Thought Association Walid has contributed to developing psychosocial, cultural, and educational services provided to children, youth and women. Working in activities and interventions programming has helped provide opportunities and new platforms for children, youth and women to be active participants and agents of change in their communities. Previously, Walid worked as a Program Coordinator at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (the only mental health specialized service provider in Gaza Strip). Here he contributed in building the capacities of many health professionals to integrate mental health services within primary health care. Walid has strong skills in planning, research, and proposal writing. In 2010, he was awarded the best business plan proposal from the Palestinian ICT Incubator (PICTI). He has worked with different donors and partners including government organizations such as GIZ, AFD, SDC; UN agencies UNRWA, UNDP, UNFPA and UN Women; and international organizations such as OXFAM, Humanity Inclusion, and ACF. Walid is interested in capacity building, gender issues, persons with disability issues, human rights, and humanitarian assistance.

Host: BookNook

Fellow role at BookNook: Walid will serve as a Projects Manager Fellow, researching special initiatives launched by government institutions and private foundations involving K-12 education. He will also be responsible for producing a high volume of quality content for education professionals.

Pragya has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector and holds a Master’s degree in Social Entrepreneurship from Tata Institute of Social Sciences as well as a Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling and a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from University of Lucknow. As part of the Fellowship team at Ashoka Innovators for the Public (Ashoka), Pragya helped design and implement leadership development and strategic planning programs to help scale impact of Ashoka and Ashoka Fellows across India. She designed two new programs – Changemaker Dinner (CMD) and Half-Time conversations to facilitate collaboration between social, business, media, and government leaders. She has organized over 30 of these events across India connecting over 500 leaders and resulting in several partnerships. She also launched Ashoka Support Network program in India to raise unrestricted funds for Ashoka and enable business leaders use their core competencies for solving social problems. Prior to Ashoka, Pragya was awarded Rural Transformation Fellowship to work towards community empowerment. She lived in an indigenous village for three years and helped establish micro enterprises to tackle under-nutrition, generating livelihood, and led a grass-root movement to build first school in the village.  In 2011 Midory co-founded a social enterprise, Saudaagar, for creating dignified livelihood options for differently-abled people. This was recognized as grass-root innovation by Confederation of Indian Industries in 2013. Through her experience, Pragya has learnt to engage with diverse stakeholder for co-creating solutions. She is interested in social entrepreneurship, social impact strategy and leadership development.

Host: Atlas Corps

Fellow Role at Atlas Corps: Pragya will support the overall strengthening of leadership development in the nonprofit sector by helping to expand the American Express Leadership Academy franchise. She will coordinate and grow the alumni network; manage and coordinate the global Alumni Summit, and help develop and improve communication.

Midory has over 7 years of experience working for profit and nonprofit organizations as a Media for Development Professional and Communicator. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Media for Development from the University of Malawi, Chancellor College in 2010. Previously, Midory worked with Total Group in Malawi as a Communications and Marketing Officer, leading in communication and marketing activities, managing and strengthening internal and external communication platforms, campaigns and media management. Midory also actively managed the publicity of Corporate Social Responsibility projects in areas of health, agriculture, education, safety, and energy with diverse stakeholders and partners. In 2018 Midory acted as a project lead for a 2018/19 start up challenge for social development entrepreneurship in which contestants from over 60 countries developed new startups. As a project lead, she facilitated a selection process of jury and ambassador, a call for projects application and media management, the project thus supports the Malawi Government’s efforts in reducing high youth unemployment rate. In 2011, Midory contributed towards food security in her country through an agricultural research project with WeEffect Malawi in empowering hunger-stricken households headed by men and women with best agro-forestry practices, land management knowledge, and skills using training to increase yields in drought and floods prone districts while managing the environment. Midory is keen to develop into a sustainable development change agent for her country and the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Host: Institute of Global Homelessness

Fellow role at Institute of Global Homelessness: Midory will support the director and operations of the Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH), working closely with a wide range of constituencies. She will be responsible for keeping IGH’s various programs working in sync, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Joshua has three years of experience in the nonprofit sector, having earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics from Tai Solarin University of Education in Nigeria. Joshua is the founder of BIP Tycoon Consults, a training and consulting enterprise that focuses on employability, entrepreneurship and business development. Within the first year of operation he has trained over 500 youths on job readiness, business start-ups and brand management. Previously, Joshua worked with a social enterprise to improve the capacity of undergraduates and recent graduates in corporate leadership and project management. Joshua also has extensive volunteer work serving as the Director of Training and Curriculum Development at One African Child, where he trains other volunteers on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)  and Global Citizenship Education (GCED). Other volunteer work includes serving as Project Manager for Enactus Nigeria, where he implemented 10 community development projects which improved the livelihoods of over 3000 beneficiaries, and as an Ambassador for Goal 8 (Good Jobs and Economic Growth) at the Enactus Nigeria National Competition 2018. Joshua enjoys focusing on the topics of employment, entrepreneurship, economic growth, and has a strong passion for youth empowerment.

Host: BronxWorks

Fellow role at Bronxworks: Serving as an Employment Specialist, Joshua will help to support youth in a variety of ways. This includes developing and facilitating work readiness workshops, resume help, planning retention events to keep youth engaged in services, and identifying and engaging employers.

Ekene has over six years of experience in the Information Technology sector, having earned a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the National Open University of Nigeria. As an Information Technology Specialist, she works with enterprises, nonprofits, and the government to transform and optimize their organizational processes using technology. Ekene is a Microsoft-certified Enterprise Content Management Systems professional and education technologist with strong project implementation and technical training skills. Previously, Ekene worked as a Senior Solutions Analyst with Infographics Nigeria participating in education projects such as the Cross River State Government Teachers Laptop Acquisition and Digital Literacy Training program, where she trained 40 facilitators responsible for training over 10,000 teachers on the use of education technology for the classroom. Under her supervision, teachers with no prior knowledge of applying technology in the classroom were adequately empowered with digital skills. She was project coordinator and technical lead for the MTN Foundation SchoolsConnect Initiative, which set up modern computer learning centers in 28 Nigerian schools and equipped teachers with the Teaching with Technology Methodology. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination, implementation, and capacity building skills. Ekene enjoys volunteering; she has served as a mentor and facilitator at Afro-Tech Girls, a nonprofit promoting STEM education in secondary school-aged African girls and with Project Revamp Africa, an educational and leadership development initiative building young leaders in public secondary schools. Ekene is passionate about education, career guidance, and solving the STEM skills gap for the girl-child.

Host: PYXERA Global

Fellow role at PYXERA Global: Ekene will serve as an Operations & Internal Communications Fellow with the goal of supporting the streamlining and operational improvements of the organization’s internal communications.

Edwin has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector, having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Travel and Tour Operations Management from Moi University. Currently, Edwin works as a Elgeyo Marakwet CSO Network Coordinator focused on transformational leadership and practical applications of social accountability tools and delivering effective development and implementation of governance programs. Previously, Edwin served as County liaison Officer for the Partnership for Transformational Devolution Project (PTD). While serving as the coordinator for Elgeyo Marakwet civil society organizations network, Edwin helped in the development and implementation of the four Elgeyo Marakwet County Open Government Partnership (OGP) commitments. He has attended the Open Government Partnership Global summit in Paris, France as well as the OGP Pioneer Sub-National Global Workshop in Washington, DC. Previously, Edwin worked with Centre for Enhancing Democracy and Good Governance (CEDGG), a non-profit that empowers vulnerable and marginalized citizens to claim their rights in local development and governance processes. Edwin enjoys focusing on topics relating to global governance and has a strong passion for good governance and youth empowerment.

Host: Open Government Partnership

Fellow role at Open Government Partnership 
Edwin will serve as an OGP Fellow to produce knowledge products and analyses of OGP action plans, facilitating the exchange of information across OGP teams and integration of OGP Local into OGP resources.