Class 36

Destiny has over seven years of experience as a marketing expert, business developer and a professional trainer. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Literature from the University of Benin and has been trained professionally in Project and Business Management. He is the founder and lead consultant for ProfileSME, an organization focused on providing business and marketing solutions to small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. Through his leadership, ProfileSME has provided sustainable business solutions to more than 17 businesses in the southern region of Nigeria. During his work with business owners and entrepreneurs, he developed competence for business management and strategic marketing skills. In 2013, he co-founded Project Management Development Centre (PMDC), a professional training body focused on developing emerging youth as business and professional leaders in Nigeria. In 2015, the negotiated and secured the Project Management Development Center partnership with the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Bayelsa State, through which he trained about 1,400 youth in Business Development, Project Management and Human Resources Management Skills. He is a volunteer to the Open Journals Nigeria, a platform that seeks to help young Intellectuals share their intellectual works and papers. Destiny is passionate about Business development and management, communication/marketing and youth engagement, development and empowerment.

Host Organization: Addgene

Role at Addgene: At Addgene, Destiny will gain an understanding of Addgene’s unique business model and use Addgene’s distribution data in conjunction with market research to develop and execute a plan to grow Addgene’s presence in select international markets.

Wissal has a master degree in 2009 in computer sciences from INPT, an engineering school in Morocco. She has over 8 years of experience in the IT field and works now as an IT project manager. Besides, Wissal is a very active citizen as she loves to volunteer to make a positive impact in her community. She has joined JCI CasaImpact (Junior Chamber International CasaImpact) in 2014, and ever since has occupied various positions and led many social projects. Today she is the Communication Vice President and a mentor to new members. She is a certified JCI trainer and has organized and facilitated many trainings tackling active citizenship, interpersonal skills as well as successful project management. Prior to that, she was a training director in the same NGO. She also was a facilitator in Injaz Al-maghrib, another NGO aiming to inspire and prepare a generation of youth to become business leaders and promising entrepreneurs of tomorrow. She works hard in the youth capacity building and empowerment field because she strongly believes in the power of one person and especially the power of youth, if one has enough motivation and finds the right mentoring, he can change the world. Moreover Wissal is a fan of meditation. She is country coordinator and peace agent at Peace Revolution peace program, and had two training of meditation and mindfulness in Goergia and Thailand. Wissal has a master degree in 2009 in computer sciences from INPT, an engineering school in Morocco. She has over 8 years of experience in the IT field and works now as an IT project manager. Besides, Wissal is a very active citizen as she loves to volunteer to make a positive impact in her community. She has joined JCI CasaImpact (Junior Chamber International CasaImpact) in 2014, and ever since has occupied various positions and led many social projects. Today she is the Communication Vice President and a mentor to new members. She is a certified JCI trainer and has organized and facilitated many trainings tackling active citizenship, interpersonal skills as well as successful project management. Prior to that, she was a training director in the same NGO. She also was a facilitator in Injaz Al-maghrib, another NGO aiming to inspire and prepare a generation of youth to become business leaders and promising entrepreneurs of tomorrow. She works hard in the youth capacity building and empowerment field because she strongly believes in the power of one person and especially the power of youth, if one has enough motivation and finds the right mentoring, he can change the world. Moreover Wissal is a fan of meditation. She is country coordinator and peace agent at Peace Revolution peace program, and had two training of meditation and mindfulness in Goergia and Thailand.

Host Organization: Microsoft

Role at Microsoft: At Microsoft, Wissal will be a central player in making sure the team closes great deals, that partners achieve milestones in a timely fashion, and key metrics like expansion, revenue projections are met. The Fellow will support the Program Manager and the wider Airband team to evolve global project engagements, partnerships, processes, tools, research, and thought leadership.

Sadia is a development practitioner with demonstrated skills in social and academic research. She has over five years of experience in the non-profit sector where she worked with micro-finance institute, nonprofit organisations and consultancy firms. Based on her extensive role as a team leader and social influencer, she became a Chevening Alumna (2016-17) and attained master’s degree in Social Research Methods (Social Policy) from Durham University, United Kingdom. Her degree has equipped her with an in-depth understanding of\nSocial Research which covered range of approaches to research- not only in terms of the techniques and methods used in social research, but also in terms of the theoretical underpinning of research. Throughout her career, Sadia has passionately worked for socio-economic development of her country where she addressed the issues pertaining to social policy areas such as gender inequality, poverty, education, healthcare, and unequal economic opportunities. In her efforts to address these issues she worked extensively at various positions to empower women through education and entrepreneurship in Pakistan so as to eradicate poverty and inequalities from the society. Through these\nexperiences, Sadia has developed strong social research, project management (including, project planning and implementation) policy development, and policy related evaluation research skills which helped her to investigate and highlight social issues and device programme implementation and action plans to address them.

Host Organization: Kiva

Role at Kiva: At Kiva, Sadia will help us significantly improve the breadth and depth of our research reviews, which form the basis of Kiva’s impact measurement system. This will involve not only expanding the set of studies we use, but significantly improving the way we communicate their results and our methodology.

Rabecca Makhuwira is a professional and seasoned development practitioner specializing with over five years’ experience working in the non-profit sector. During her career, Rabecca has worked with three International Non-Governmental Organisations in various roles, including in monitoring and evaluation, project management, volunteering, proposal development, developing Monitoring and Evaluation systems, conducting research studies and reporting. Rabecca is also an entrepreneur in the Agriculture sector. Recently, Rabecca was working for Action Aid as Monitoring and Evaluation officer in a consortium of five non-governmental organisations. Rabecca also volunteers for Center for Women and Girls Empowerment (CEWOGE) as a Programs Director. She is very passionate about girls and women empowerment and investing in children as she believes the future of Africa lies on it. Some of the leadership roles Rabecca holds in her community include, developing effective social protection systems, motivational speaking, leadership training’s facilitation, adult literacy teaching and fundraising for needy female students. For the past two years Rabecca has impacted girl’s education by sharing her stories, encouraging female students’ dropouts to go back to school and providing scholastic materials to needy students. She is also a Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) alumni, a program for Southern African Leaders and graduated with a certificate in public management by University of South Africa which has enhanced her authentic and transformative leadership. Through these experiences, Rabecca has been equipped with the necessary technical and leadership skills that has necessitated her to effectively deliver.

Host Organization: BronxWorks

Role at BronxWorks: With BronxWorks, Rabecca will to help strengthen the program’s effectiveness, with respect to tracking retention. This added investment in time and effort will help to increase their use metrics to track the follow-up of the income of the program participants continued employment, job promotion, increased wages and need for public supports (i.e. public assistance, transportation, childcare, etc.).

Oluwabusayomi is a Journalist with over seven years of experience in using storytelling to educate, empower, and encourage positive outlook on rural development, entrepreneurship, and youth leadership in Africa and across the Commonwealth region. A graduate of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, ’Busayomi’s work has been featured on news platforms and magazines with continental and global reach. She has also published in the How We Made It In Africa: The Book. (2018). Oluwabusayomi is the co-founder and managing editor of Rural Reporters – a Nigeria-based news platform with in-depth coverage of under-reported issues in rural communities in Nigeria and across Africa. She also served as the Assistant Editor of Leading Change, the University of Cambridge website for The Queen’s Young Leaders Programme. Her experience in the nonprofit sector includes working as the Communications Officer for Network of Migration Research on Africa (NOMRA), serving as an Editorial Assistant at Development Diaries, and volunteering as an advocate of Women Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights in Nigeria for Ipas. Oluwabusayomi has worked as an independent research consultant for Euromonitor International since 2016 covering consumer behaviour and lifestyles and other industry-related research in Nigeria. She draws on her experience as both a Journalist and industry watcher to communicate from an insider’s perspective. Oluwabusayomi, a fellow of the International Women’s Media Foundation, enjoys shining the spotlight on people who are breaking barriers in their field and communities. She is interested in making rural development issues an integral part of global development.

Host Organization: Transparency and Accountability Initiative

Role at Transparency and Accountability Initiative: At TAI, Oluwabusayomi will focus on developing and implementing a strategic communications plan for the organization. She will also help TAI undergo a strategy refresh in 2019, disseminate our new strategy widely in 2020, and work on fast changing, globally relevant issues with leading philanthropic funders.

Meriem is an open-minded, friendly and resourceful engineer in Computer Science who graduated from the Algerian National School of Computer Science in 2015. She has 3 years of solid experience and diverse capabilities in IT project management, Information System management and governance using agile and lean thinking, and Business Analysis. While working as an IT Project Management, she was heavily involved in redesigning the postal services’ Information System in Algeria by assisting experts in mapping business, app\nand technology processes using SIPOC, TOGAF & COBIT; requirements gathering and planning; elaborating IT strategical plans taking client’s needs into account; and supporting the client in his upstream thinking (writing specifications, change management) and downstream thinking (training).\nMeriem has a clear, logical mind with a practical approach to problem solving and a drive to see things through to completion. She is eager to learn, enjoy overcoming challenges, and have a genuine interest in Information Systems, enterprise architecture and evolving technologies. Meriem is also an active member in her neighborhood NGO and has always been engaged in working on how effectively we can educate people about their rights and obligations as democratic citizens, and how to develop citizens’ skills to work with one another\nto solve common problems, to debate public issues, and express their views. Within her NGO network, Meriem organize and participate in events related to youth education and women empowerment using her strong academic background and professional experience to ground her work. She is also part of various networks of women leaders from MENA regions that promote peace and discovering inner qualities to revolutionize and face nowadays hostile communities; to improve schools, the government, the environment and whatever her society needs to create and sustain an environment in which everyone can thrive.

Host Organization: boodleAI

Role at boodleAI: At boodleAI, Meriem will support the software development team by assisting in the identification of incoming features that are valuable to the business and their clients, gathering and analyzing high level requirements, tracking sprint progress and elevating risks to management, creating and maintaining project documentation, defining and executing test scenarios, and participating in all Agile ceremonies.

Karam Yaaqba is a senior software solution provider with 8 years of experience in developing cutting edge software for a leading healthcare provider in the United States. In 2014, Karam earned a scholarship to continue his study in the U.K., and he obtained his master’s degree in Robotics from the University of Birmingham – UK. He worked with STRANDS – a European Robotics project – during his thesis. In 2011, he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Technology from the Arab American University – Palestine, graduating with honors. In 2011, Karam started working as a Software Developer with iConnect – a custom software solutions provider based in Chicago, IL, U.S. through their R&D branch in Ramallah, Palestine-. In 2015, he rejoined iConnect as a Senior software Developer, to help iConnect utilize AI/ML on their healthcare solutions. Karam’s year at the U.K. was a life changing point. During that year, Karam learned how to organize his time, how to set and achieve goals. Karam had his first experience in leading a group of people. In iConnect, he learned discipline, and he tightened his grasp on problem solving skills. Karam is interested in helping to microfinance small projects in order to empower small owners’ and their communities, he is also searching for a better understanding of human rights, because he lives in diverse country.

Host Organization: Microsoft

Role at Microsoft: At Microsoft, Karam will will support the Cloud Solution Architecture team to drive the deployment of Airband partner workloads into Azure and increase their consumption of the platform by providing deployment guidance, supporting development of the partners’ cloud adoption model, and providing appropriate recommendations to overcome blockers for Airband partners.

Ikenna Anyadike has seven years of experience in the social enterprise sector and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Government and Public Administration from Imo State University, Nigeria. Ikenna is a 2017 fellow of the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, a program powered by the U.S State Department, and a recipient of the 2012 Commonwealth Youth Program for Africa intervention, Discovering Young Leaders Program. He is also a Google Digital Skills trainer and business partner with Clarity4D, UK. With a specific focus on youth development and education through capacity building, Ikenna currently leads a teen development campaign, Live Out Loud, dedicated to cultivating entrepreneurship and social innovation in teenagers. Along with a team of volunteers, Ikenna successfully pioneered PROJECT BYB=X (Best You, Better = X), a series of personality discovery, career path identification and digital skills workshops for teenage students drawn from select schools in Abuja, Nigeria. This triggered the adoption of the program now called, PROJECT D3-X (Discover | Develop | Deploy – X), by relevant stakeholders as a new approach to career and personality identification for students. Owing to his interest in education and youth empowerment, Ikenna is currently on a drive to provide youth-friendly safe spaces called, Discovery Hubs for adolescents to explore capacity building content and life-skills that are not covered in schools. He has two publications to his credit in addition to a personal development podcast channel viz: My Friend Figaro, Discovery Hub Setup Toolkit and iKsPeaks Podcast respectively.

Host Organization: Making Cents International

Role at Making Cents International: At Making Cents International, Ikenna will will help build and grow the community of young changemakers on YouthLead.org by orchestrating activities that encourage YouthLead members to engage with each other and truly form a community/communities on the platform. Ikenna will be working with a variety of sponsors, youth networks, and youth development experts around the world to expand the breadth, depth, and reach of the platform. At Making Cents International, Ikenna will will help build and grow the community of young changemakers on YouthLead.org by orchestrating activities that encourage YouthLead members to engage with each other and truly form a community/communities on the platform. Ikenna will be working with a variety of sponsors, youth networks, and youth development experts around the world to expand the breadth, depth, and reach of the platform.

Hisham has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Jordan. Most recently, Hisham worked for International Rescue Committee (IRC) as an Employment Deputy Manager, Managing a team of officers to conduct assessments to vulnerable Syrians and Jordanians and identify their economic needs and provide decent job opportunities to them by matching them with the available open vacancies, the project aims to improve the economic status of the beneficiaries and provide a more sustainable solution and to enable the beneficiaries to work and support themselves financially, Previously Hisham has worked for Community Engagement Project a Global Communities project funded by USAID as a program Manager, managing a big team to identify the needs of local communities afflicted by the Syrian crisis and help them submit proposals that will enable them to receive in kind grants from USAID, Hisham also oversaw the implementation of the project’s activities and intervention and was responsible for engaging governmental and civic organisations as well. At the same time, he engages in volunteer work with local community-based organizations (CBOs) to promote and maintain social peace and a culture of acceptance of others among local communities. . Through these years of experience, he gained strong skills in communication, effective coordination, and leadership. Hisham enjoys focusing on topics of humanitarian relief and development of refugee communities and demonstrated great efforts to improve the welfare and safety of the refugees and to empower refugee women and youth in his country to effectively contribute to restoring peace and development.

Host Organization: Abt Associates

Role at Abt Associates: At Abt Associates, Hisham will will support the SHOPS (Sustaining Health Outcomes through the Private Sector) Plus project by working with the private sector on family planning, child health, and HIV interventions. He will also support the implementation of technical activities and assist with writing technical project reports.

Florence Shikuku has over eleven years of experience in various fields within the private sector. Florence is a Resource Development Officer for Academies Unit at the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa a nonprofit Organization in Kenya, where she focuses on managing and developing a network of sustainable volunteer and individual fundraisers to raise scholarship and offer opportunities for the less privileged have access to education. She has gained tremendous experience in developing and managing projects, working with foundations to strengthen community engagements in East Africa. Her accomplishments include piloting a four-week summer internship for youths coming from the United States and raised $33,000 which led to the expansion of the funding program.\nFlorence is a Mandela Washington Fellow 2017, volunteered with International Rescue Committee and AmeriCorps, on their robust programme on community support, she helped refugees acclimatize to a new environment. Florence was awarded a collaborative grant by IREX Organization and USAID Kenya, to volunteer in the Central African Republic, helping businesses understand their accounting systems and governance. She is also an Alumni of Young African Leadership Initiative East Africa 2018\nFlorence is a Certified Public Accountant, member of East, Central and Southern African Federation of Accountants and International Federation of Accountants (ICPAK), holding Bachelor of Business Management from Moi University, Mombasa. She advocates for education and creating awareness about opportunities and socioeconomic activities with the vision of encouraging and enlightening marginalized communities. She is empowering entrepreneurs on business development and financial management training, helping the community in economic development to address social problems. Florence leverages her experiences and skills in making meaningful contributions via the innovation ecosystem in Kenya. She is particularly focused on entrepreneurship and social inclusion efforts as a means of poverty alleviation and global prosperity. She speaks English, French and Swahili. Florence Shikuku has over eleven years of experience in various fields within the private sector. Florence is a Resource Development Officer for Academies Unit at the Aga Khan Academy, Mombasa a nonprofit Organization in Kenya, where she focuses on managing and developing a network of sustainable volunteer and individual fundraisers to raise scholarship and offer opportunities for the less privileged have access to education. She has gained tremendous experience in developing and managing projects, working with foundations to strengthen community engagements in East Africa. Her accomplishments include piloting a four-week summer internship for youths coming from the United States and raised $33,000 which led to the expansion of the funding program. Florence is a Mandela Washington Fellow 2017, volunteered with International Rescue Committee and AmeriCorps, on their robust programme on community support, she helped refugees acclimatize to a new environment. Florence was awarded a collaborative grant by IREX Organization and USAID Kenya, to volunteer in the Central African Republic, helping businesses understand their accounting systems and governance. She is also an Alumni of Young African Leadership Initiative East Africa 2018.

Host Organization: Kiva

Role at Kiva: At Kiva, Florence will work with a small team to identify and assess a wide range of organizations, from nonprofits to social enterprises, that operate in areas of impact (such as agriculture, renewable energy, water, ICT, health or education).

Elijah has seven years of professional experience in the nonprofit sector. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Renewable Natural Resources Management from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. Passionate about driving positive social change, Elijah is a Co-Founder and Executive Director of community-based nonprofit organization- Help Change Ghana which works to empower communities to take proactive actions to reduce litter, indiscriminate dumping of waste and undertake beautification projects such as tree planting. His most significant professional accomplishment with this organization is the design and launch of the Community Litter Prevention initiative which trained and developed skills of 300 volunteers through a train the trainer model in 2014. The initiative has since reached over 30,000 individuals in nine communities with information on litter prevention techniques. Additionally, he coordinated conservation education programs in community schools which increased formation of Eco-clubs to ninety-six as at March 2019. Elijah’s efforts have been tremendous in rekindling grassroots support in keeping clean communities and conserving nature. Previously, he worked with the National Disaster Management Organization where he coordinated a team which administered support for flood displaced victims in rural Accra. Also, he volunteered with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in public cleanup events such as the National Sanitation Initiative. Through these experiences, he has developed skills in project planning and implementation, leadership development, training and capacity building. Elijah has strong desire for leadership development, entrepreneurship and community empowerment.

Host Organization: Keep America Beautiful

Role at Keep America Beautiful: At Keep America Beautiful, Elijah will work with the Programs Director to execute Keep America Beautiful’s signature programs focused on cigarette litter prevention and community beautification. He will execute a grant program, market the programs to their affiliates and a broader audience, help execute an educational campaign and research potential new sponsors.

Chilochibi Chiziba is a Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (RM&E) enthusiast, Bachelor of Arts Economics with Demography (minor) holder from the University of Zambia. He has worked in RM&E related positions for about 4 years in different organizations including Jhpiego, Concern Worldwide, and the United Nations Economic commission for Africa. While working for these organization, He worked on projects focused on, socioeconomic development, gender based violence, nutrition, HIV/AIDS, maternal and Child Health. Immediately after graduating in 2015, he earned an internship with the United Nations Economic commission for Africa where his work involved supporting the Sub-regional Office for Southern Africa in carrying out policy research, analytical studies and advocacy to promote economic and social development. After completing the six months internship, he joined Concern Worldwide where he supported routine monitoring, impact evaluation and overall learning component of projects to facilitate implementation, performance assessment, identifying appropriate actions for strengthening performance of humanitarian responses and development approaches. From 2016, Chilochibi has been supporting the Zambia Ministry of health in areas including HIV/AIDS, malaria, cervical cancer, reproductive, maternal and child health through data systems and research while working at Akros and Jhpiego. In his capacity, he provided technical capacity building in DHIS2/HMIS data use and analysis at all Ministry of Health levels, including provincial, district, and facility levels and led the design, development and implementation of provincial monitoring, evaluation and research systems. This included the development of RM&E plans; implementation of data management and data use systems.

Host Organization: Solstice

Role at Solstice: Chiliochibi will join a team at Solstice working with two Department of Energy awards to implement a new alternative credit metric, increase energy equity, and grow the solar pie – and stand up some of the first low-income community solar projects in the country.