Fellows

Aziz Ullah has four year of experience in learning and development, entrepreneurship, business development and public speaking; working with non-profit and for profit both in private and public sector. He earned an MBA from National University of Modern Languages Pakistan, and B.Sc Civil Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar Pakistan. He is a certified trainer from School of Leadership Pakistan and has earned multiple
national and international certifications. As an Acumen fellow Pakistan, he is working on creating sustainable solutions to enable the graduates from unprivileged areas receive training, improve their entrepreneurial and employability skills to be socially and economically stable and live a better life. Aziz has for four years of experience as a Co-Founder and CEO for the Center for Awareness Training and Development Pakistan, which is a training and management consultancy working with public and private sector to develop market needs based skills in individuals and employees, promote entrepreneurship and build capacity of startups and entrepreneurs, and fill the skill gap between job sector and academia. As a trainer, learning and development profession, he helps people and organizations reach their goals and perform with greater impact. Aziz Ullah facilitates learning programs nationally and internationally for corporate, nonprofits, academia and youth to enrich their leadership values, employee efficiency, team performance and creativity and entrepreneurship skills. He has designed and delivered
professional training modules & courses for 30 + local, national and international organizations during the past four years and has facilitated more than two hundreds learning programs, workshops and training conferences. Aziz has akeen interest is working with non-profit and for profit sector on promoting and developing entrepreneurial ecosystem, capacity building of graduates, startups, entrepreneurs and employees to help organization and individual be more effective, more efficient and more productive in creating greater impact with the work they do.

Host Organization: The Resolution Project

Role at Host Organization: Aziz will learn about and map Resolution’s 100 existing social entrepreneurship ecosystem partners (known as Pathway Partners) and plan a new activation framework for Pathway Partners through a public-facing online platform.

Clara has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Finance, Accounting and Management from the University of Nottingham funded by a scholarship under the Star Education Fund. While working at Generasi Gemilang Foundation (GG), Clara led a team on a collaborative project with the local Corporate Responsibility Department of an international financial institution. She was involved in developing a plan to provide access to basic financial protection for the urban poor. Clara also trained children and youth to manage their finances wisely through financial education programs run in schools and communities across Malaysia. As part of the deployment of this project, she worked closely with relevant government departments, regulators, and nonprofit organizations to maximize results. Prior to that, Clara managed GG’s volunteer group, built the volunteering structure and mobilized hundreds of volunteers to serve the community. Through these experiences, she developed strong project management and implementation, leadership and presentation skills. Clara is passionate about increasing the financial inclusion of the poor and in partnering with companies to meet the needs of underprivileged communities through their corporate responsibility initiatives.

Host Organization: Center for Asia Leadership Initiatives – Atlas Corps Malaysia

Giana is a hands-on professional with 8+ years experience working with Communications and Project Management in Social Sector organizations from Brazil, U.S. and Spain. Giana holds a Bachelor degree in Social Communications from Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (Brazil) and a Post Certificate Course degree in Social Innovation Management, from Amani Institute. Giana is currently studying a Master in Strategy and Technology for Development at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and working as project manager at Fundación Tomillo (Madrid). While Brazil is her home, she has been living for the past year in Spain and has lived for some time in Bolivia while volunteering at Proyecto Martadero. Giana was as a scout team leader, president of AIESEC in Curitiba (Brazil) and had volunteered in other various NGOs. On a professional level, she has worked on social impact projects in different sectors: at a multinational company, a governmental organization, a non-profit foundation and a social enterprise. Giana has experience working as ‘intrapreneur’ twice: when implemented the Social Franchise ‘Projeto Pescar’ at the multinational company Dixie Toga S.A. and when implemented the initiative ‘Estudar Fora’ at Fundação Estudar, one of the main non-profit foundations that support Brazilian youth in their education. Her interests are related to Education, Social Innovation and Sustainability and her way of working is based on a mixture of empathy, action, and strategic thinking. See more at www.gianaandonini.com

Host Organization: Women’s Alliance for Knowledge Exchange

Role at Host Organization: Giana will work as a Strategic Planning & Marketing Fellow to contribute to the development of essential marketing materials and marketing campaigns that will help WAKE achieve organizational sustainability, partnership development, outreach and impact.

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.

Mahak has five years of experience in engaging talent for sustainable organizational performance through capacity building initiatives focused on women and youth empowerment for energy and financial sector of Pakistan. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from the National University of Computers and Emerging Sciences, Islamabad. At USAID-Training for Pakistan Project, she worked on capacity building needs assessments to highlight technical areas which will contribute towards new global practices, challenges and developmental needs in line with Pakistan’s regional pacts. She successfully initiated and implemented 18 training programs focusing on financial management, cyber security, leadership and communication to achieve international best practices for sustainable organizational development. She has worked closely with young leaders from energy and financial sectors to enhance their capacities in areas promoting innovation to help strengthen long-term results. During the implementation of training programs, she also facilitated successful implementation of two courses by USACE for climate and water experts resulting in introduction of new simulation tools for effective management of the overall Indus River Basin. She also worked with ITCILO in organizing a Works Procurement Management course based on Pakistani needs which was later introduced as a regular course at Pakistan Audit and Accounts Academy, Lahore. Previously in 2013, she implemented a nation-wide USAID-Energy Internship Program for youth belonging from underdeveloped areas of Pakistan and it successfully increased women participation from 2% to 9% at Thermal and Hydro Power Plants of Pakistan. The program helped her draft the Gender Strategy for ministries of Pakistan; strategy detailed inclusion of more women in the energy sector in technical areas. She has been voluntarily working with a postpartum self-help group for endorsing mother-child health awareness campaign. All these experiences have developed her working knowledge in program development and implementation, stakeholder liaison and strategic planning for effective project management

Host Organization: Teach For All

Role at Host Organization: Mahak will play a key role in helping build an influential network of champions for the MENA region (Middle East, North Africa) and provide critical behind the scenes support to early stage entrepreneurs seeking to join the Teach For All network.

Tahir is a meticulous resource who started his professional career when he was 16.5 years old only, initially working as a sales man in an upscale department store, he was offered a job as a human resource professional in an established IT firm operating out of UK. Tahir spent almost 3 years with the firm learning human resources operations, he then moved on to another firm and was working in HR & OD. At this point he had gathered around 5 years of HR experience and was then offered a position as Manager HR & OD in one of the largest used Japanese car company operating from Yokohama, Japan. In this job, Tahir expanded the company from 30 people up to 700+ people in a span of 3 years. He was driven with the passion to prove himself as a manager and hence was instrumental in ensuring that the company reached new heights in terms of profits. Tahir has a blend of people management skills, developing people using leadership pipeline method, entire spectrum of human resources management and organizational development. After succeeding with the assignment at the Japanese company he was appointed as Head of Human Resources of a local group dealing in food industry, Tahir developed entire HR systems and Training areas and at the same time worked in a parallel role as Franchising head for the same. After spending 2 years with the mentioned company he was offered a role as Head of HR at a multinational microfinance bank, he served for 1 year and now is pursuing his passion as an entrepreneur. Tahir has a master’s degree in political sciences and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in HR & organizational psychology from IOBM, hence overall he has 13+ years of working experience and complemented qualifications.

Host Organization: Eat Offbeat

Role at Host Organization: Tahir will help Eat Offbeat develop procedures crucial HR processes to ensure an outstanding employee experience and allow for healthy scaling. He will implement those procedures in NYC and examine ways to translate them to other contexts as the company scales.

Victor is a Public health professional with 6 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. He earned a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Jos in Nigeria. Victor currently works as the Active Case Finding Coordinator at KNCV Tuberculosis foundation, a Netherlands based international organization providing technical assistance to countries on Tuberculosis control and eradication. He leads a USAID-funded TB case finding intervention across communities and key populations in Nigeria known as WOW (Wellness on Wheels) which uses a mobile clinic platform in identifying and linking diagnosed TB patients to free treatment through innovative screening and diagnostic methods. Prior to this, Victor coordinated two NIH research projects (ISTAR and mHealth) in Benue while working with Caritas Nigeria where congregation based approaches to prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV were implemented with outstanding results achieved. Victor has experience in research, institutional capacity building and project management. He believes that through evidence, solutions can be provided to public health challenges, women and gender issues as well as leadership development. Victor is optimistic that the efficient use of data in designing public health interventions and health policy will ensure sustainability and overall improvement in health systems across Africa.

Host Organization: San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium

Fellow role at San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium:  Victor will serve as a SFCCC a Health Care Data Analytics and Strategy Fellow who will help develop a data strategy and streamline the processes used to collect, store, analyze, and report data. He will The work with partners to develop usable reports and validate the data used to deliver high quality health care to the most vulnerable residents of San Francisco.