Scholars

Abenezer is a Human Resource Professional with almost ten years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Abenezer earned a Bachelor of Art in Public Administration and Development Management from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. While working as a Senior Human Resource Officer with CARE International in Ethiopia, he helped the organization to recruit, train, and retain a high performing workforce and implemented gender equality program in recruitment to increase female employees in the organization. Previously, Abenezer worked as a HR & Admin Manager with International Rescue Committee Ethiopia program under USAID and other donors funded programs. Through these experiences, he has developed strong people management skills, communication skills, and created welcoming workplaces for employees, where they can strive to do their best. Abenezer enjoys focusing on the topics of economic development, democracy, and human rights and has a strong passion of reading books.

Host Organization: Panorama Global

Role at Host Organization: As a Talent Acquisition Fellow, Abenezer will help Panorama Global source, identify, screen, and hire individuals for a broad range of roles across the organization affiliates. The Fellow’s role includes: inputting the overall hiring strategy of the organization to ensure the teams consist of a diverse set of qualified individuals; ensuring the staffing needs of the company are being met, with a long-term talent strategy in mind; and devising and implementing sourcing strategies to build pipelines of potential applicants, such as employer branding initiatives.

Benny Katta is a Scholar of “Rural Economy and Digital Tools” with a study on Digital Agriculture, Rural Economy and Social Development. He has 17 years of professional experience in program management and project implementation on rural & social-economic development, corporate social responsibility projects, sustainable livelihood, women empowerment, digital agriculture, capacity building, and commercializing the FPOs. He is a good strategic planner, conflict manager, and social impact player. He has displayed skills in decision making, critical thinking, and demonstrated persuasive communications, team management, and leadership skills. He was recognized with the “Sitara Award” for setting up a benchmark for clean finance handling by Tata Group for DFID Project.

Edrisa Keita is from Sukuta in the West Coast Region of the Gambia. For the past five years, he has been the National Coordinator of Tostan Gambia, after five years of previous experience working with the organization as a partner and Assistant National Coordinator. He holds a postgraduate degree in Population and Development Studies at the University of the Gambia. He has also completed training in Entrepreneurship and Promotion of Income Generating Activities at The National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development in Uttar Pradesh, India. He holds a Professional Training Certificate in Project Planning, Management, and Evaluation from the Pan African Institute for Development West Africa; and a certificate in Business Management and Administration from the Institute of Commercial Management from the Nusrat Commercial Management Center. Before his current role at Tostan, he held positions as a teacher, an Accounts Clerk in the Ministry of Finance, a Regional Programme Officer at the National Women’s Bureau, a member of the Gender Action Team and Technical Advisory Committee, and a Chairperson in the Gambia Red Cross Society. He has also participated in development platforms with different agencies: the UN Development Assistance Framework for the Gambia (UNDAF) working group, the National Gender and Women Empowerment Survey, and the development process of the National Women’s Act of 2010.

Gregory Asiegbu has five years of experience as a trainer and consultant. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Federal University of Technology Owerri in Nigeria, and a Master’s degree in Oil and Gas Management from South American University in Delaware through distant learning. While working as a Management Researcher with Lagos Business School, he helped conduct research that provided strategic insight for entrepreneurs’ in Nigeria’s business environment. These insights include adopting digital technology, an efficient inventory management system, and operational improvement. He is enthusiastic about the promise of digital platforms in accelerating Africa’s industrialization. He has co-authored a book on Africa’s platforms and the evolving sharing economy. Previously, Gregory worked as a Project Coordinator and a founding member of a non-profit aimed at bridging the skill gap amongst African youth. Gregory has volunteered as a Project Coordinator on an SDG’s Advocacy Project in Nigeria, where he organized a medical outreach, skills, and capacity-building program for Internally Displaced Persons. Through these experiences, he developed vital research, analytical, project coordination, and implementation skills. He is an excellent communicator, leader, team member, and able to study trends and proffer solutions. Gregory enjoys focusing on the topics of human capital development, entrepreneurship, and emerging technology.

Jennifer Bertilla Ejinkeonye is a Bachelor’s degree holder in English and Literature from the University of Benin, Nigeria. She is a passionate and goal-driven individual who is interested in helping women and girls improve their chances for a better future by contributing to their knowledge and skills. As a gender equality advocate, she continuously attempts to establish a place for women and girls with little to no information on how to improve themselves in the rural areas of Nigeria. Presently, she works with a non-profit organization, Women Empowerment Education and Peace Building Initiative (WEPBI) where she has developed excellent communication and social team working skills. Jennifer implements these skills to expand her leadership responsibilities to continue advocating for women and girls in rural areas. She is the acting Program Officer of WEPBI and has channeled her energy towards ongoing projects like One Girl One Pad Initiative, Women Leadership Academy, and the Women’s Voice and Leadership project. She is also a basking entrepreneur — the founder and CEO of Recardos Bertie, an e-commerce that is progressively operating in Lagos, Nigeria. Jennifer is an enthusiastic writer and blogger who advocates for the need to reform the identity of the male gender in today’s African society through insightful writings on her new blog known as ‘The Kings’ Lounge.’ Jennifer is an ambassador of the World Literacy Foundation (WLF). She is also undertaking a special development project called the Female Entrepreneurial Leadership Development (FELD). The project is established as part of her community service through the Atlas Corps Virtual Leadership Institute program. FELD is a means of creating sustainable entrepreneurship platforms for females in Nigeria. The project is in line with the UN’s Sustainability Goals of Zero Hunger, Quality Education, Decent Work, and Economic Growth as well as Reduced Inequality. These sustainability goals are to be achieved over time through activities that will cut across the three focus areas of the project which are: Digital Technology for Entrepreneurial Advancement, Enhanced Agricultural Learning and Skill Acquisition.

Kazem Hemeida is a development professional with 10 years of experience, of which five years of progressive positions were at Humanity & Inclusion (HI). Kazem currently occupies the position of Cairo Area Manager, where he oversees the operational aspects of Cairo projects. In addition, Hemeida leads the HI’s Inclusion Technical Unit based in Egypt, with a mandate to support diverse stakeholders from the private sector, civil society organizations, and government to adopt disability-inclusive policies and practices. Before working at HI, Hemeida worked as a Senior Program Specialist at the Center for Development Services, where he managed projects that aim to enhance the empowerment of youth and women. He also contributed to local and global participatory studies. Moreover, he worked at Egyptian non-governmental organizations such as the Egyptian Youth Federation, where he contributed to the design and implementation of various projects that aimed to improve civic participation for youth and women. Furthermore, Hemeida is an experienced trainer and facilitator who organized Open Space Technology workshops, designed and facilitated simulation games workshops that were attended by hundreds of participants. Hemeida holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Cairo University. He is a recipient of the Peace Scholarships Program, where he studied for one year at Colorado State University, winner of the World Bank’s Global Fund for Youth Investment Grant for his project about enhancing youths’ employability through self-employment in the ICT sector, and Youth Guest Speaker at the Clinton’s Global Initiative.

Lorna Kanyuga is a skilled development professional with five years of experience in the social sector. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi. Currently, she is the Kenya Philanthropies Lead at Microsoft, where she coordinates digital training initiatives and entrepreneurship and employability programs. During her time at Yusudi Limited, she led the development, testing and launch of Jijali, an online learning program that uses blended learning techniques to provide personalized entrepreneurship and career training to over 1,400 young people. Previously, she was Life Skills Trainer at the same company, where she developed and delivered career preparation training to over 200 unemployed college graduates and young professionals. Prior to that, she managed the Social Projects Department at the AIESEC office in Kenya, where she led the development and implementation of strategies to grow the international volunteer program. Through these experiences, she has gained skills in project/program management, training, and youth development. In her spare time, Lorna volunteers at schools in informal settlements in Nairobi, where she supports schools in providing life skills training to students and fundraises for learning materials. She is passionate about skills development for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds, youth development and the use of technology in education.

Mai has extensive experience in project implementation through her coordination of various projects and her direct work with partners, vendors, refugee communities, and host communities in her former organization, Catholic Relief Services, in Egypt. Mai was also a Special Assistant to the Advisor to the Chairperson on strategic relations at the African Union Bureau of the Chairperson as an assignment of her AU Youth Volunteer Corps. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Cairo University in 2016 and is currently enrolled in a Euro-Mediterranean Master program in Cairo University. Furthermore, Mai has four years of experience in the fields of advocacy, program coordination and support. As an advocacy officer at the Egyptian Center for Public Policy Studies, she worked on three projects that focused on the role of nonprofits in development in Egypt, business environment for SMEs, and budget transparency and disclosure. These projects were with multi-level stakeholders. Mai also succeeded in designing and facilitating 15 capacity building trainings for the parliamentarians’ staffers and workshops for young entrepreneurs with Friedreich Numan Foundation. Working on these projects developed her organizational and communication skills since working with different stakeholders on different levels paid off with much experiences in organizing conferences, capacity building, stakeholders meetings, international donors meetings and one to one meetings with government officials and public figures. As programs coordinator at Tahrir Lounge @Goethe institute, Mai was responsible for coordinating cultural programs in which she worked on creative expression for social issues like poverty and gender based violence, which resulted in seven productions of art materials and 10 short movies addressing gender related issues.

Host Organization: Save the Children

Role at Host Organization: As an Advocacy Officer Fellow (Child Rights and Participation), Mai will offer support to the Save the Children New York Advocacy Office (NYAO) in the areas of engaging children and youth to influence policy and political debate at the United Nations. The Fellow’s role is key to the office’s commitment to ensure the protection and rights of children around the world through strategic engagement in key moments, commissions, resolutions, and for a in the UN space. The Fellow will work alongside NYAO colleagues and UN-based coalitions to secure meaningful participation of children in the UN Space and to inform that issues that disproportionately affect children are clearly addressed in UN outcome documents and resolutions. This role will also work closely with the “Shift Power” program colleagues across Save the Children member, regional and country office colleagues to provide direct support to adolescent and youth from frigate context to participate in global advocacy.