Fellows

Abid is a mobilization, monitoring and evaluation professional, with five years of experience in the humanitarian and development sector of Pakistan. He holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur Sindh. Currently, he is working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization as a Social Mobilization (Team Lead) and District Focal Person in the Human Security Project, funded by UNTFHS. He is engaged in field operations, implementation, and as a liaison to the government and other stakeholders. He helped more than 2000 male and female farmers gain access to their social rights and maintain good relations with their landowners by signing tenancy agreements, along with economic development through on-farm and off-farm activities. His tenure helped develop his leadership, project management, rapport building and monitoring and evaluation skills. Beyond his skills and professionalism, he is very interested in youth empowerment through education and social entrepreneurship activities. He has voluntarily organized many sessions at schools in his vicinity to raise awareness for future opportunities for youth in education and development sector. Abid is an adventurous person, who loves to explore famous places, cultures, meet different people and learn new languages.

Host Organization: Creative Associates International

Role at Host Organization: Abid will be supporting the Business Intelligence Function with research and analysis of the international development market to help inform strategic decisions. He will be conducting research on Creative’s competitors, partners, clients, and news sites to analyze where the market is and Creative’s advantages and potential opportunities.

Abida has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Peshawar in Pakistan. She has diverse work experience as a program support personnel in planning, monitoring, evaluation, research, reporting, and knowledge management. Abida has worked with host communities, internally dislocated people as well as with refugees, in development and emergency contexts. While working as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer with the Sarhad Rural Support Program, she helped in providing social mobilization support to the Community Driven Local Development policy of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, under the funding of the EU. Abida has also helped in providing opportunities to the rural women of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in their homes, through the provision of skill development and microfinance trainings, under the AUSAID-funded livelihood strengthening project. Previously, Abida worked as a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting Officer with the Danish Refugee Council in Pakistan to support sustainable solutions for Afghan refugees living in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, by creating livelihoods and improving general living conditions. Through these experiences, she has acquired strong monitoring and evaluations skills, which are applicable across different areas. Abida enjoys focusing on the topics of women empowerment, economic development, promotion of Civil Society Organizations and rural development.

Host Organization:  Empowered Women International

 Role at Host Organization: As EWI relies heavily on monitoring and evaluation of our program impacts for use in fundraising and communications with potential clients and donors, Abida will be helping shape the continued improvements to Monitoring & Evaluation by both assessing and updating the current systems, and researching & implementing a new Customer Relationship Management system by late 2016.

Agha Mohsin Ali has been working in the development sector since 2006 with National & International organizations including NRDP, WWOP, Youth in Action, UNDP, BBSA, CPEA Network and SEHER on different management positions. He earned a Master’s in International Relations from the University of Balochistan, Quetta Pakistan. While working with the National Rural Development Programme (NRDP) Pakistan in Islamabad as Manager, Program Planning and Partnership Development, he led overall fundraising, resource mobilization, program research, planning, and program development processes. During 10 years of experience he implemented, coordinated, and developed partnerships with major donor agencies like USAID, DFID, UK-aid, UNICEF, USAID, CIDA, UNICEF, UNDP, USIP and IOM. Agha has had in-depth experience in child rights, education, and youth empowerment in Pakistan. He worked to protect children from abuse, neglect, and exploitation as well as to provide access to education through establishment of child-friendly spaces and temporary learning centers in flood affected areas. He has provided child protection actors opportunity to interact, share their experiences and avoid any duplication of resources through the CPEA Network and 12 larger projects on education, child rights, democracy and nutrition. Over this period, he has developed skills in monitoring and evaluation, program development, program implementation, proposal writing and resource mobilization. He has also written different articles and blogs on child rights and education in different news sites like ARY Blogs, Hamari Web, Duniya News and The Nations News. Agha also participated in different national and international forums like the World Youth Conference, 2010 in Leon City, Mexico, where he was as a delegate.

Host Organization: Creative Associates International

 Role at Host Organization: Agha will be assisting project staff with the development of an indicator database for a new evaluation project with the ExxonMobil Foundation. This project will be assessing the progress of client grantees in women’s economic empowerment on outcome indicators.

Altaf is a digital marketing aficionado and bona fide Software Engineer with over seven years of diverse experience working in the for-profit, nonprofit and government sector. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering from City University of Science and Information Technology in Peshawar, Pakistan. Last year, Altaf joined a team of entrepreneurs as CTO and helped them in developing an E-commerce store and formulating the online marketing strategy. In one year the store had over hundred thousand dollars in sales and it recently got incubated in the Government of Pakistan backed National Incubation Center Accelerator program. His Software Engineering background enables him to document, design, build, implement and manage large scale software development projects. Previously, at China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, he worked on conceiving, developing and implementing an encrypted project timeline monitoring and information relaying system. His nonprofit experience includes working on digital rights advocacy as an independent consultant for Digital Rights Foundation Lahore. Where he led a pilot project to build and manage a Right to Information web portal for District Government. For online fundraising, he built a digital ecosystem from the scratch for a nonprofit, Pehli Kiran School. Working in different sectors with his unique blend of marketing and development background, it has inculcated strong analytical skills, strategic thought process and leadership abilities in him. He plans to use his professional prowess to add more verticals to his personality and find an enabling environment where he can apply himself.

Host Organization: Eat Offbeat

Role at Host Organization: Altaf will act as the Technology & Digital Marketing Fellow to build proprietary technology to increase flexibility and improve customer experience. He will also work on designing and running digital marketing campaigns for its current product and testing campaigns for new products.

Ali Zain Ul Abidin has more than 5 years of diverse experience in human resources, talent management, and capacity development of youth in for-profit and non-profit sectors. Ali earned his Master’s in Management Sciences from Baluchistan University of IT, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS), a leading public sector university, in Quetta, Pakistan. Ali has worked with BUITEMS, closely engaging with local, national, and international stakeholders for promoting employability. In this capacity, Ali has developed a talent pool of graduates from a diverse range of academic disciplines, assessed their profiles, and referred outstanding and qualified profiles to employers for jobs, training, and internships. Ali is also proficient in mentoring students for personal and professional career development. As Talent Coordinator Fellow at Partnership with Chldren, Ali assists the Chief Equity Officer and Talent and Equity Manager in managing talent acquisition goals, overseeing the PWC school intern program, and involves himself in overall performance management. He has also worked as HR Executive with a multinational logistics corporation (TCS Holdings), leading the Baluchistan Region, and Ali extended his expertise in talent acquisition and HR operations. Through these experiences, Ali has gained a firm grip on youth capacity building, peer education, HR operations, and management. He is avidly interested in broadening his perspectives on HR international practices, leadership, capacity development, talent acquisition, job training, and civic engagement.

Host Organization: Partnership with Children

Role at Host Organization: As the Talent Coordinator Fellow at Partnership with Children, Ali will assist the Chief Equity Officer and Talent and Equity Manager in managing talent acquisition goals, overseeing the PWC school intern program, and the overall performance management. The Fellow’s responsibilities include developing and implementing a strategic recruitment plan; facilitatig the hiring process for all program and administrative roles; and ccordinating and managing intakes for all new opportunities. The Fellow will also prepare and support managers to facilitate performance management process, including an annual review and goal setting; and support managers in addressing performance issues in conjunction with the Director of Human Resources.

A development professional with more than ten years of experience of working with public and private sector stakeholders particularly in the domain of public-private partnerships, skills development, counseling & placements, technological sophistication, labour market survey, institutional capacity building, and knowledge management for socio-economic development. Currently, working with Louis Berger on USAID Punjab Youth Workforce Development Project as a Lead for Placements, Partnerships, and Institutional Capacity Building. Ansa is providing strategic, technical & policy support, and advice on formulation and execution of capacity development initiatives for empowering vulnerable and marginalized youth; strengthening partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders at all administrative government tiers with an aim of improving accessibility, equity, and relevance of youth development services for sustainable socio-economic development. Previously, worked with GiZ as PPP Advisor and facilitated the Government and public-sector institutions in bridging the disconnect with private sector for demand-driven workforce development. Prior to that, served at Technology Upgradation and Skill Development Company (TUSDEC), a subsidiary of the Ministry of Industries and Production, Government of Pakistan (GoP), for about eight years in multiple capacities, starting from a trainee metamorphosed into a Manager leading a team of four professionals. The sphere of responsibilities included orchestrating proposals and papers for the Government, multi-funding agencies, creating partnerships with bilateral/multilateral groups, corporate sector, and government bodies along with executing image building initiatives. Her educational pursuits involved an MPA from University of Punjab, Pakistan and a BBIT from Lahore College for Women University. The blend of classroom and on-job learning significantly inculcated leadership, cross-functional team work, effective communication skills, problem resolution, and resilience into her personality. She always has a balanced approach towards life, relishes her work as a development professional, and eager to mark herself as social entrepreneur contributing productively towards socio-economic melioration of local communities.

Host Organization: United Way Bay Area

Role of Host Organization: Ansa will enhance UWBA’s business partnerships work through research, data analysis and the creation of a strategic plan. She will work with the Equity Team to assess current activities of the business partnerships team as well as conduct research on best practices across the nation, including feasibility of expansion in the Bay Area and analyze our data.

Arsalan is a development professional with nine years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He holds a Master’s degree in Statistics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. His core functional and sector expertise include research, evaluations, program coordination and management, proposal writing / resource mobilization, microfinance, enterprise development, and post disaster recovery. He brings hands-on experience of managing donor funded projects for microfinance, enterprise development, livelihood, social mobilization, education, nutrition, and food security. He started his professional career in 2006 with National Rural Support Program (NRSP) when it launched the post earthquake operations in Azad Jammu & Kashmir. In a career spanning over 7 years, Arsalan, established the NRSP Microfinance portfolio and later introduced innovative micro loan products.

In 2009, he visited Thailand & Philippines for an ‘exposure cum learning visit’ to bring back learned lessons and new ideas for USAID/SBI funded Advancing Microfinance for Post-Disaster Economic Reconstruction (AMPER) project. In 2012, he was selected as one of the 15 fellows of the prestigious Emerging Leaders of Pakistan (ELP) program, launched by the South Asia Center of Atlantic Council, USA. The ELP program is aimed at creating an in-person and online networking forum for engagement and collaboration of civil society leaders from Pakistan. In 2013, Arsalan made a career move to development consulting and joined an international development consulting entity, where he lead the projects & partnerships development unit.

Host Organization: Disaster Accountability Project

Role at Host Organization: Arsalan will help DAP build relationships with civil society organizations (CSOs) and NGOs in the U.S. and globally, train representatives of CSOs and NGOs to complete SmartResponse surveys, manage aspects of SmartResponse program and development, and assist with outreach efforts to “disaster donors,” the media, student groups, and diaspora networks.

Asim has nine years of experience in research, big data analytics, program design, and monitoring and evaluation of diverse community development projects that focus on women entrepreneurship and health interventions. He earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology in Pakistan and pursued his P.hD. from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). He recently worked in the capacity of research and evaluation for Entrepreneurship Beyond Boundaries project where he developed standard operating procedures and evaluated the pilot intervention in Malaysia. Previously, Asim has worked with Marie Stopes International for UKAID funded project and managed the Franchise Live Application for Monitoring and Evaluation, conducting Participatory Ethnographic Evaluation Research. Additionally, Asim has monitored the 18-months quasi-experimental research study to empower the women in rural settings as part of the behavior change communication strategy, and small-scale community action research projects using the comic power, photovoice and participatory reflection and analysis tools. Asim has a keen interest in working with the development sector organizations on entrepreneurial ecosystem development and system improvement via big data analytics to help marginalized communities.

Host Organization: PYXERA Global

Role at Host Organization: Working directly with senior staff conducting research and providing analysis on existing client engagements, Asim while helping to create processes and improvements to S.I.s operations and services. He will also conduct landscape assessments for existing client deliverables while building a consistent platform to ensure quality and efficiency.