Fellows

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.

Farhad has more than 5 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan. He founded a social media and public relations consultancy firm in April, 2015 named The Social Media Consultants. Previously, Farhad has worked as Communication Manager with UNDP’s project Strengthening Democracy through Parliamentary Development. He has also worked with the National Commission for Human Development, as well as Capital TV as Producer of a current affairs show, and Pakistan Peoples’ Party as central social media coordinator. He has played a pivotal role by teaming up with civil society to run campaigns for the cause of human rights. He also organized the regional South Asian Youth Conference in 2012. Through these experiences, he developed strong communication and public relations skills. He has also managed to build close contacts in civil society, political parties, and media. He loves writing and has a deep interest in new media technologies, human rights activism, politics, and international relations.

Host Organization: Creative Science Labs

Role at Host Organization: Farhad will lead market research and competitive analysis efforts, help develop and execute marketing plans, and be primarily responsible for the social media presence of Creative Science Labs.

Born in a middle-class family in Karachi, Pakistan, Hira used to envy the life of bankers. The lavish branches chilled with ACs, shiny cars and home loans just for using computers all day. Wow! After completing the Intermediate, she got all excited to study chartered accountancy. Unfortunately, life had other plans and her family couldn’t arrange the fee. She got the talent farming scholarship, completed her business administration degree and won Gold. That’s where she found her Entrepreneurship gut. She was 18 when she started a business of organizing training on career-counseling. It failed and she entered into the corporate world (unwillingly). Writing has always been her passion, be it a personal diary, or an exam. The words flow as she takes out the pen. As her first internship, she stepped into the world of digital and started making social media strategies for them and her unique selling proposition was still her ‘words’. Tech industry embraced her talent like no other thing and she got recognized by many local and international companies because of her exceptional work. Fast forward to 5 years, she is currently a Tech Journalist writing for multiple top-tier tech publications including VentureBeat, TheNextWeb and Entrepreneur.com. She also heads blog and media for Coinschedule.com, a leading ICO listing the company in the UK. She is also the facilitator of Startup Weekend Karachi. In local sphere, Hira is famous has a tech evangelist and a public speaker involved in digital skills penetration and bringing inclusivity in the tech industry. She founded of a copywriting agency, Digital Doers and a closed community, Tech Geeks Pakistan where tech enthusiasts share their love for technology on one platform. She is also a certified Editor from IBA. Her website is www.hirasaeed.com

Host Organization: Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Role at Host Organization: Hira will work as a GSBI Women’s Economic Empowerment Fellow to implement new research, initiatives, and/or projects to help her host organizations advancement of women’s economic empowerment through GSBI programs and resources.

Mehak has three years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Environmental Policy from the Lahore School of Economics. While working as an Assistant Manager for Communications and Knowledge Management at Nur Center for Research and Policy, Mehak spearheaded a DFID-UKAID funded project for developing the first National Knowledge Portal for Maternal and Neonatal Child Health (MNCH). This knowledge portal serves as a platform to share and collate maximum available MNCH knowledge in Pakistan, to facilitate public health experts and establish policymakers in developing evidence-based policies to strengthen the MNCH sector in Pakistan. Mehak also worked as Project Lead for an operational study with UNICEF on the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) initiative, where she was intricately involved in organizing training sessions for skilled birth attendants and designing interventions based on the findings of the research. In the past she has worked for different social and development projects, supporting youth and women’s rights, which she feels passionately about. Previously, Mehak has worked on a one year USAID funded project on rehabilitating survivors of gender based violence (GBV) at a shelter-home. Her work involved developing holistic rehabilitation plans for the GBV survivors in order to reintegrate them back into society. Through these experiences, she has developed strong project management, report writing, event planning and communication skills, especially with regards to donor-funded projects. She is also a certified fitness instructor and works part-time at a fitness studio, leading High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workouts.

Host Organization: Atlas Corps

 Role at Host Organization: Mehak will be responsible for managing the Atlas Corps Global Leadership Lab (GLL), a training program for rising global nonprofit leaders participating in the Atlas Corps Fellowship. She will also plan and manage this leadership development program to empower Atlas Corps Fellows in their professional journeys. Mehak will ensure the overall excellent experience for staff, speakers, and Fellow participants.

Muhammad has five years of experience mostly in education sector specifically Technical and Vocational education. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance and a Master’s degree in Marketing from Lahore School of Economics and Bachelor’s of Law LLB from University of the Punjab. He has been appointed as a CEO of City and Guilds International in Pakistan. While working at C&G International as a Quality Assurance Manager he has successfully managed to implement the best quality and compliance practices, which has elevated the brand reputation of the organization in Pakistan, and a program of 3000 students, 15 Master trainers of Culinary Arts and Patisserie Qualification was agreed between the Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority Punjab for one year. Previously, he has worked with Information Technology University, Punjab as an Outreach and Linkages Associate and helped the technical team to develop an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system to find jobs for marginalized people and post jobs by the industries, it was backed by a research at the grass root level and a baseline survey. Also, during his job he has disbursed vouchers to Training Service Providers (TSPs) and apprentices for apprenticeship training to 1300 trainees over six months period. He has also worked at USAID Chemonics International at Procurement Department and developed robust procurement skills during 6 months period. During his work he has experienced following issues in the country; lack of skilled education, poverty, hunger, homelessness, women empowerment, youth development. Through his experiences, Abdullah has established a strong implementation and coordination skills, training and development, education management, marketing, business development, communication skills and outreach and creating linkages skills. He is passionate to work for skills development and encourage people to develop skills for themselves, businesses and eventually for the economy.

Host Organization: Bronxworks

Role at Host Organization: Muhammad will act as the CQI Coordinator and will be responsible for tracking and assuring that business transactions are properly supported and recorded for various regulatory requirements. He will will work with the CQI team to understand key performance indicators and program metrics, conduct internal program audits, and present metric reports at inter-agency and internal meetings.

Hamza has five years of experience in the development sector of Pakistan, and has a strong academic background in Development Economics with a Postgraduate Degree (MSc.) in Economics from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. Hamza’s thematic areas of expertise are regional connectivity and trade, development economics, democracy and social accountability, quantitative analysis, gender development, social budgeting, and child rights governance in Pakistan. He has gained experience progressively working for global, regional and national organizations on forwarding human rights of children, youth, women, and the most vulnerable populations in Pakistan. He was associated with the Economic Growth Unit at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), a premier think tank in Pakistan, in the capacity of Project Associate. Hamza also has experience working with various international non-profit organizations such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Save the Children, Actionaid International, The Asia Foundation and national non-profit organizations like Social Innovations, Pakistan Microfinance Network, Bedari, and Youth Parliament of Pakistan. He has shown resilience and commitment to working in sensitive areas of Pakistan for Afghan refugees and Internally Displaced People from the conflict area of Swat, in Khyber PakhtunKhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Hamza’s core competencies include a drive for results, working with people, communication, formulating strategies and concepts, analyzing and interpreting, networking, and strategic thinking.

Host Organization: International Center for Research on Women

Role at Host Organization: Hamza will be a Research Fellow specializing in quantitative data analysis and program monitoring and evaluation. This research will help to support ongoing projects by providing input into the design of new studies in various gender related initiatives.

Mr. Prem is millennial development professional with MBA in Management and carries 14 years of professional experience. During professional career he has served at mid to senior management level with national and international non-government organizations including USAID, World Bank and DFID funded programs in the areas of education, economic empowerment, children protection in conflict affected areas of Pakistan. Prem’s expertise includes strategic management and leadership, communications and advocacy, proposal writing, program execution and knowledge management. Currently he is leading knowledge management, communication and reporting for USAID funded education program in disaster affected areas of Pakistan. He has successfully led three multi million dollars projects within given time and resources at the provincial level positively impacting more than 50,000 lives directly. Prem is innovative team leader with can-do attitude and in-depth technical experience in program management and liaison with implementing partners. In recognition of his contribution in disaster and conflict affected areas in Pakistan, he was given Best Humanitarian Award by the Government of Sindh, Pakistan. He is skilled in designing and implementing communication strategies and advocacy plans to influence child rights policies at provincial level. Last but not the least he is well versed in three languages; English, Urdu and Sindhi and recognizing his competencies he was awarded prestigious fellowships like; Netherlands Fellowship Program, South Korea Cultural Exchange Program and One year U.S. Based Atlas Corps Fellowship for emerging global leaders.

Host Organization : CARE

Role at Host Organization : Prem served his fellowship with CARE USA and International Relief and Development. During his fellowship he provided technical and managerial backstop to field based programs (Community Mobilization Program while serving in IRD) and Child Marriage Prevention Program in CARE USA. His expertise in communications and gender mainstreaming helped organizations in smooth execution of their field based programs. He has also provided his inputs in business development process at CARE USA.

Sadia Ijaz completed her Master’s in International Relations, from University of Peshawar, an LL.B degree from Ayub College of Law, Haripur, and Bachelor’s of Education (B.Ed.) from Hazara University Mansehra (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) in Pakistan. SadiaIjaz brings more than ten years of rich professional experience mainly in child rights, education, health and hygiene, communications, monitoring, reporting, documentation, and professional practice leadership roles. She has held progressive management roles at Saibaan Development Organization and De LaasGul (DLG) Welfare Program in child rights, child labor, women empowerment, library development, and water filtration plant projects funded by OXFAM Germany, ILO, Asia Foundation, Association for Development of Pakistan, and Global Funds for Children. She has seen great success in the development and implementation of these projects, and also has shown great leadership and initiatives that shows her persona. Sadia worked in Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE) project with Save the Children International funded by Netherlands Embassy for a year. She is presently the Senior Officer of Documentation, Reporting and Communications at Save the Children International. She has experience in improving coordination with external stakeholders and has overcome many challenges, which ultimately improved the impact of the projects implemented by Save the Children in the region. Sadia is an effective and dynamic leader with sound knowledge of issues related to teacher education, school development, leadership, and ECCE in the context of Pakistan. Through these experiences, she developed strong project coordination management, communications, monitoring, evaluation, reporting, documentation, and program implementation skills.

Host Organization: RESULTS

Role at Host Organization: Sadia will ensure effective coordination of the International/Northern Civil Society Organizations constituency, through the establishment of an online communications platform, development of a constituency advocacy strategy, and contributions to ongoing research and analysis of key constituency issues. She will also regularly communicate across the other Global Partnership for Education Board civil society constituencies to ensure coordinated actions.