A Conversation on African Entrepreneurship
The discussion will feature leading experts in the field of international development and African entrepreneurship as well as the King Baudouin African Development Prize winners. The three African Development Prize laureates, dedicated to empowering their local communities, have been recognized for their outstanding contributions to development in Africa, and will share their first-hand experience about their work in development.
The Panelists
Gerald Abila is the Founder and Managing Director of Barefoot Law and a King Baudouin African Development Prize winner. Barefoot Law is the first online legal service advocate in East Africa providing equal and fair access to justice by demystifying the law in a way that allows average citizens to claim and exercise their legal and human rights.
Alloysius Attah is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Farmerline and a King Baudouin African Development Prize winner. Farmerline merges global technology and local expertise to connect smallholder farmers in Ghana to data analytics and visualization, financial tools and supply chains.
Anthony (Tonee) Ndungu is the Founder and Chief Information Officer of Kytabu and a King Baudouin African Development Prize winner. By leasing out content through a mobile payment system, Kytabu leverages technology to develop and distribute timely curriculum content to students and teachers in urban and rural areas in five countries throughout East Africa.Dr. Liesl Riddle is Associate Professor of International Business and International Affairs at George Washington University and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs at The George Washington University School of Business (GWSB). She has written extensively about diasporas and development, international entrepreneurship, and trade and investment promotion.
Dr. Esther Obonyo is Associate Professor of Engineering Design and Architectural Engineering at Penn State. Dr. Esther Obonyo is an alumna of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program (CADFP), which supports faculty exchange fellowships for African-born academic from the United States and Canada. Through CADFP, Dr. Obonyo collaborated with the University of Nairobi in 2014.
Jeremy Coats serves as Lead, Foundation Programs at IIE. He leads six programs including the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York; the Greek Diaspora Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation; and the Christenson Fund’s Indigenous Biodiversity Exchange Fund. During his time at IIE, he has managed various scholar exchange programs and has supported the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program’s Europe and Sub-Sahara Africa portfolios.
The event will take place at:
Open Society Foundations
1730 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
#700
Washington, DC 20006