Scholars

Abdalrahim Abuwarda earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in English Literature and focused his studies on literary works and translation. Abdalrahim found links between the literary works, development, management, and leadership. Then, to empower the Palestine’s youth, he led a project with Pal-Think, a non-profit organization, that aimed to raise awareness among youth on democracy and entrepreneurship. The project included conducting lectures, launching art exhibitions, and carrying out workshops. Abdalrahim facilitated 25 events and each event targeted 25 Palestinians from different backgrounds. Abdalrahim used his experience at Pal-Think to engage in one of his proudest endeavors, co-founding Al-Frarabi for Multilingual Services. As the co-founder and co-director of Al-Farabi, he translated, edited, and proofread many English-to-Arabic texts. He contributed to the translation of two books in human development: Read Artists Do Not Starve and Steal Like an Artist. Mr. Abuwarda managed interns, new employees, and college students. Moreover, he moved to occupying a position as a social worker at Almajd Association for Development. He was responsible for 350 cases including orphans, people with special needs, and needy families. He wrote up assessments, which met specified standards and timescales. He made decisions about the best course of action for the beneficiaries. Most recently, Abdalrahim managed to work as a Social Media (Freelancing) Mentor at Gaza Sky Geeks (Mercy Corps). He managed to train four cohorts on how to use social media platforms to get job opportunities. The results of the 240 participants were promising as over 54% of them managed to obtain paid opportunities, both short and long term.

Aboud J. Al Ifranji has five years of experience in the nonprofit sector and three years of experience in the UNRWA education sector. A.J. earned a Bachelor’s of Teaching English Language from Al Azhar University in Gaza, Palestine. While working as an English teacher in different UNRWA schools, he helped improve his students’ academic achievement in English in prep schools. While working as a Project Coordinator in Japanese Campaign for the Children of Palestine, he helped improve the quality of education in local government schools across different areas in Gaza, Palestine. Through these experiences, he developed strong project coordination, planning, monitoring, implementation, reporting, and evaluation skills. A.J. also honed his abilities to work with computerized and office programs, use cameras for video recording and editing, and facilitate different types of trainings, workshops, and meetings, especially for teachers and school staff members. A.J. is also deeply skilled in translating oral and written English to Arabic, researching, working under pressure, multitasking, and leading teams. Throughout his career, A.J. has developed a wide variety of communication skills, along with best practices in data collection, validation, summary, and analysis. A.J. enjoys focusing on topics of education development, cultural variety, sports, animation, movies, and music, and has a strong passion for self development and youth empowerment.

Abubakar Kagermanov has six years of experience in the nonprofit sector and two years of work in university. Abubakar graduated from Grozny State Oil Technical University in Russia. During his second year of studies, he realized his goal of working to solve social problems in the local community. He couldn’t leave the university, as his parents were paying tuition fees and they had their own expectations. But it didn’t stop him from volunteering at local NGOs and creating his own social projects focused around conflict management, peacebuilding, communication, and human rights. After graduating from university, he started to work as an Assistant Director of the local NGO “Youth the Future.” In 2017 Abubakar received a scholarship for his Master of Arts on Theory and Technology of Social Work at Chechen State University.To this day, he is continuing his research on the topic: Socialization of Children with Disabilities in the Chechen Republic. He also created a project on socialization of children with disabilities and is still engaged in the project as a volunteer. For the last five years, the project helped more than 220 children and involved more than 150 volunteers. Since 2013, Abubakar participated in different long term programs and has won grants to support his local activities and projects. For the last two years, he has worked at the Chechen State University. Thanks to this job, he was able to attract young people’s attention to certain social problems, create new workshops, and facilitate sessions for the students to improve their soft skills and find creative solutions for complex social issues.

Ako Eyo Oku is a young leader with extensive experience in broadcast media and public service. Ako has worked for the Nigerian Television Authority for nine years, where she has served three different regions and over 200 Nigerian communities with enlightening, educational, and entertaining TV programs. Ako is committed to community development and advocacy for social change. She has been an active leader in several organizations, including the Child Rights Club, Rotaract Club, MDGs/SDGs Mass Awareness Group, Strategy and Innovation for Development Initiative, and the Young African Leadership Initiative. She founded the Global Learning Community Program, a community of practice that encourages worldwide learning at the local level via MOOCs and GLAMs. In 2019, Ako participated in the US government-sponsored Mandela Washington Fellowship, where she received training on Leadership in Public Management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ako is a Commonwealth+ Open Source Leader, a World Pulse Ambassador, and an African Changemaker. Ako belongs to Chatham House, TED, Creative Commons, and Wikimedia communities.

Aleksandra Sergeeva earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Hospitality Management from International Management Institute in Switzerland, and a professional degree in Nutrition from National Institute of Professional Education in Russia. She is interested in public health, especially in the area of foods and nutrition. Aleksandra has worked in a company which produces and sells peptide products for more than one year. Her main duties are providing the actual information about the achievements in the area of health promotion and illnesses prevention. She creates articles and provides consultations. Aleksandra’s working experience is related to the hospitality industry, where she had a chance to observe current trends of customer demand from service, food, and beverage sides. Aleksandra took her career pathway from hospitality management and found her passion in being a nutritionist. She would like to start a non-profit educational organization as she sees the importance of improvement in public nutrition. She believes that healthy nutrition and professionally balanced diets are important for everyone. The major skills she acquired through recent experience are social media marketing management, copywriting, and public speaking. Aleksandra’s main interests are educating people about healthy lifestyle, writing articles, and creating recipes.

Almamoon Almashaqba has seven years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned a Bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Al Albyt University in Jordan. Almamoon worked as a Technical Youth Assistant with a youth capacity building project for community engagement in Jordan under the Norwegian Refugee Council program. In this role, he helped increase the accessibility of the labor market for youth by building their capacity and mitigating local market employment challenges. He provided a set of systematic training for Jordanian and Syrian youth aged between 16 and 26 years old, including: positive thinking, employment skills, and communication skills. Previously, Almamoon worked as a Protection Case Manager with the International Catholic Migration Commission to assist the most vulnerable people in the community. Through these experiences, he developed solid knowledge and experience in project life cycle management, program development planning, setting indicators, implementing, and monitoring and evaluation. Almamoon worked with the International Rescue Committee in the Child Protection Program based in refugee camps in Jordan as a Child Protection Case Worker in unaccompanied and separated children to provide protection and make reunification with their families. Almamoon enjoys focusing on the topics of protection and livelihoods. Almamoon has a strong passion for youth empowerment.

Amelia Hagen brings ten years of experience across education, entrepreneurship, and event management. Amelia earned a Master in Science in International Event Management with a focus on Sports Mega-Events at the University of Brighton (UK) and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Iowa. She currently serves as the Entrepreneurship and Business Development Manager for the Swiss Institute of Hospitality Management and the North American Development Representative for Sport and Sustainability International. In 2018-19, Amelia developed the new Social Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking Program at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She also worked as a UNDP Environmental Management Consultant for the 2018 World Nomad Games. To further understand opportunities for grassroots development within Sports Mega-Events, she volunteered at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics and multiple FIFA events in Russia, including the 2018 World Cup. Prior to moving to Central Asia in early 2018, Amelia co-founded and led a university social enterprise boot camp in Manila, Philippines, and coached university students in developing their own sustainability-related initiatives in the UK. Throughout her global career, Amelia has fostered essential skills in diplomacy, project management, leadership, capacity building, and event management. Her purpose in leveraging international events for peace development is rooted in global education coordination and teaching experiences in Italy and Japan. She is particularly interested in harnessing the global sports event world to promote gender equity and sustainability initiatives among youth under the Sustainable Development Goals umbrella.

Ananya Banerjee is from India and has over seven years of entrepreneurial and advisory experience. She completed a double Bachelor’s degree in Law and in Arts from the University of Calcutta and a MicroMaster’s degree in Business Management from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. She has completed various certification courses related to entrepreneurship, design thinking, and strategy to help her navigate through the entrepreneurial world smoothly. She has recently exited her latest venture, Earnyt, a marketplace for the gig economy where she was the chief visionary, designer, and idea developer. She is simultaneously working with start-ups, incubator managers, and the Wadhwani Venture Fastrack team as a Start-up Fellow. Ananya has published her first book on how to achieve operational excellence for early-stage start-ups, based on a 6S framework she devised from her knowledge of lean six sigma and agile methodologies. Ananya ran Unico Legale and was the Founder (and later, Founding Partner) for more than 3 years. Her philanthropic venture “Know Your Business Better” helped many start-ups and traditional businesses become more data-driven. Her areas of interest include entrepreneurship and economic and leadership development. She has actively been a part of the entrepreneurial development sector and wishes to contribute continuously towards helping founders working with sustainable development goals.