Augustina Amakye
Dr. Augustina Amakye, the Lead Consultant of Prime Communication Consulting, holds a BA in Communications from Luther College, Iowa, USA, an MA in Linguistics form Syracuse University, in New York, USA and a Doctorate in Communications from Regent College, Virginia, USA. In addition to working in a senior management position in Education Administration, as the Dean of the School of Communications of the African University College of Communications (AUCC), Dr. Amakye has worked as a Lecturer teaching subjects such as Public Speaking, Business Communication, Gender and Communication and Gender and Development.
Dr. Amakye has had over 10 years experience in conducting trainings on behalf of institutions such as UNESCO, INDEPTH, the Ghana Mineworkers Union, Golden Star Resources, Aker Energy as well as worked on grants and proposals for companies in Asia on behalf of Armstrong Hilton & Associates.
Pauline Koelbl
Ms. Pauline Koelbl is the Founder and CEO of AfriProspect GmbH and ShEquity, Pauline is an Innovation Expert in Developing & Emerging Economies, impact investor and seasoned impact-driven Team Leader with over 20 years’ experience in international affairs and philanthropy industries. Pauline is a leading expert and influencer on the transformation of developing countries to emerging economies by designing programs & policies fostering inclusive innovations. Her passion lies in innovation, entrepreneurship and empowerment of youth and women.
During the last 8+ years, Pauline’s work focused on catalyzing marketable, scalable and impactful home-grown innovations for African-led growth across African continent, building strategic partnerships and innovation ecosystems that will invigorate economic growth across Africa. Her work at the African Innovation Foundation (AIF) as the Managing Director and Director, Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA) led to impact of more than US$ 135 Million generated investments for supported African innovators.
Prior to that, she worked for a number of UN bodies and NGOs in Africa, Europe and USA including WHO in Geneva, UNESCO in Paris, UNICEF in Goma, Enda Tiers Monde in Dakar, Jewish Family and Children’s Services in Arizona etc. Pauline is a Fulbright Scholar & Fellow and is currently serving on different Boards of companies/organizations connected to business/entrepreneurship/innovation in Africa and is the co-founder of Professional Women of African Heritage (PROWAH). She is also a member of ABM University Council (Botswana) and serves on the Academic, Research and Innovation Committee.
Erick Tambo
Dr. Erick Tambo is an Associate Academic Officer at the United Nations University in Bonn, at the institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and leads the program on Pan African Cooperation and Educational Technologies (PACET) at UNU-EHS. The programme leverages digital technologies to strengthen educational and research capacities of UNU-EHS, its partner institutions as well as scientists and practitioners at a global scale. Furthermore, it investigates the teaching – research nexus to enhance higher education and capacity development by using educational technologies and conceptualises and organises e-learning modules related to projects and core competencies of UNU-EHS. During the last nine years he has been working in the field of e-learning and ICT for Development. Since September 2017 he is seconded from the United Nations University to the Pan African University Institute for Water and Energy Sciences (incl. Climate Change – PAUWES) of the African Union as Research Coordinator. He is coordinating the PAUWES Online postgraduate program on Mini-grid Digitalisation and Entrepreneurship (PAUWES-MDE) and supervises students in the fields of Digitalisation in context of Water, Energy, Food and Climate Change in Africa. Prior to joining UNU-EHS, he was a research associate at the Fern-Universität in Hagen and headed the working group on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) for the Chair of Cooperative Systems.
Foster Ofosu
Mr. Foster Ofosu is an economist with over 20 years’ experience in researching, teaching and practicing International Business and Innovation Management. He is an innovation and technology driver with entrepreneurial instincts and training, supporting creative initiatives inside and outside organizations. Foster has an insatiable passion for developing the capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa especially among the youth.
As an educationist and trainer, Foster has an in-depth expertise and practice of eLearning both in corporate and academic institutions. He led the integration of eLearning into programs of the Turku University of Applied Sciences, and the Turku School of Economics in Finland where he also lectured in International Business and Innovation Management. He was also Director, Africa and Northern Europe for WWEDU Worldwide Education, Austria. He was also a Senior Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, as part of the team that managed the Distance Learning Center of the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN).
Foster is currently a Knowledge, Innovation and Capacity Development Specialist at the African Development Bank, where he has led the integration of ICT and digital tools into capacity building for Africa. He was named among the top 100 Africa’s Movers and Shakers in Online Learning in 2018. Foster is also the founder of the Idea2Market Africa, an initiative that helps develop, deploy and diffuse Africa-based innovations by enhancing the capacity of innovators and entrepreneurs to help maximize the value of their technologies, products and services.
Faten Bahar
Ms. Faten Attig Bahar is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow for the International Climate Protection Program (2019 -2020), hosted at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology, University of Rostock, Germany. She has submitted her Ph.D. thesis at the University of Carthage, Polytechnic School of Tunisia. Faten has rich expertise in Renewable energy technologies and implementation, Energy system modeling, Renewable energy project valuation and financing options, Climate finance, Green transition with focus on Africa, Renewable energy emerging markets, Energy Efficiency in industry and buildings, Science communication.Faten is serving on several continental committees including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), WMO Research Board on Weather, Climate, Water and the Environment, Future Earth, Steering committee of the FE Nexus Knowledge-Action-Network and the FE African community and the International Support Network for African Development (ISNAD-Africa), for which she also served as a mentor/coach. She is also an Executive Committee member of the Young Earth System Scientists YESS-community. In this capacity, Faten co-chairs the YESS online events working group and the co-leader of the YESS-PAUWES webinar series initiative (Edition I (2018-2019) and Edition II (2020)),. The Webinar series is a joint activity between YESS, Future Earth Nexus KAN, and the Pan Africa University. She is also the North African Vice President for the African Union’s Youth for Change AUY4C and Youth Ambassador for Tunisia for the Universal Education Network. Faten has extremely good written and spoken communication skills in four languages (Arabic, French, English, and German). Author of several published children’s books (19 published books in the Arabic language) and has received several awards as an outstanding youth author in Tunisia.
Rachel Aron
Ms. Rachel A. Aron is a seasoned Social Development Specialist. Rachel currently works as the Director of Business Development for Africa Sports Ventures Group. Rachel has immense experience in identifying, analyzing, managing, monitoring and evaluating, and reporting on social considerations in programmatic, project, and policy interventions. She has conducted social due diligence for private sector and public sector projects and programs covering diverse sectors in all regions of Africa. She has initiated, developed, and managed innovative and strategic partnerships.
Rachel holds significant advisory and expert positions in various organizations including the African Utility Week, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s Inclusive Policy Lab, the Global Mining Sustainability, the Circle of Global Business Women. Additionally Rachel is a member of Avançons Ensemble, a Task Force member for Initiate! Africa and a Senior Advisor to the President of the African Renaissance and Diaspora Network.
Satu Järvinen
Ms. Satu Järvinen an education professional, especially in developing innovative new learning solutions for skills development internationally, for the past years solely in Africa. Satu has over 10 years experience in setting educational service strategy and implementing innovative digital learning solutions to increase education quality and relevance. works with a large global partner network to develop and effectively deploy innovative solutions in skills validation
Ephraim Daka
Mr Ephraim Daka has more than 14 years of experience in multi-disciplinary program management, development economics, research, and technology field. Expertise in project cycle management, Science, Technology & Innovation (STI) policy, commercialisation & governance. Processes sound knowledge in private-public sector partnership, institutional strengthening and governance, international trade policy, SMEs through inclusive innovation. Mr Daka possesses a master’s degree in economic sciences with professional studies in R&D and innovation policy evaluation. He is a certified/Licensed Innovation Practitioner able to measure and assess innovation capabilities, accredited to international innovation-360 Group. Previously worked as a Research Scientist in innovation systems and knowledge economy unit at VTT-Technical Research Centre of Finland. Currently works as an independent consultant, he last consultancy mission was in 2019, performed a feasibility study on EU (Framework contract) support to business incubators in East & Southern Africa.
Akosua Bame-Ashiagbor
Ms. Akosua Bame-Ashiagbor is the Founder and Managing Director of AKOAMA Ltd, a Management Consultancy Practice specialising in new business incubation and development, strategic commissioning, large-scale organisational transformation and strategic change management. As an entrepreneur who has successfully established and managed her own Consultancy practice for over 20 years and owns a range of enterprises including retailing of proprietary premium cosmetics in the UK, her goal is to help her clients [particularly owners of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)] to clearly articulate their vision, incubate and build robustly successful businesses.
Whilst leveraging her knowledge and experience from across a range of sectors including financial services, transport, aviation, central and local government, Akosua’s differentiator is her skilfulness in mindset coaching. Her breadth of clients includes corporate executives, potential entrepreneurs (especially women, teenagers and young adults) and ‘talented but troubled’ youth
Akosua is the pioneering owner of the Mindset Revolution Concept (thought mastery, coaching and mentoring programmes) and author of the book Mindset Revolution, one of the tools underpinning the concept: http://tinyurl.com/h4zbhww. Her intention is to play a leading role in transforming mindsets of Africans wherever in the world they may be.
Pauline Akolo
Ms. Pauline Akolo is a seasoned strategic Communications expert with close to 10 years of International experience, strong oral and written Communications skills and a solid understanding of International Development Communication.She is a proactive committed client focused practioner with a passion to deliver and a broad in-depth knowledge of all components of media and communications, including Strategy Development, Research and content Development, Editing, Social Media Management, External and Media Relations and Branding.
Pauline served as a Communications Specialist at the African Development Bank Headquarters from 2012 to 2018, during which time she acted as the Departmental Communications focal point providing technical leadership to departmental staff on Communication Initiatives and Publicity products such as press statements, fliers, training brochures amongst others, leading innovative solutions and assisting with negotiations as required.
Some of the key achievements while at AfDB include; Team leader in the Development and production of the quarterly Capacity Focus Magazine, Developed and compiled the Institute’s training manual for FY 2013/2014, Participated in content development for the 50 Years Anniversary Book of the African Development Bank, Team leader for Consultants assigned in producing Policy briefs, Magazines and Research papers, Participated in the Development of the AfDB’s ten years Communications strategy (2013-2022)She has previously worked for World Vision International-East Africa Regional Office (EARO) as a programs Associate (2008-2012) amongst other organizations.
Pauline is well versed with packaging complex information for a wide range of audiences and platforms. Strong leader and team member, skilled at problem solving and working across diverse cultural sectors and cultures, she is also a recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship (2016-2017)
She is a graduate with a Master’s degree in Communication and Media studies from University of Leeds, UK. Akolo also holds a Degree in Development from Daystar University, and a Higher National Diploma from Institute of Mass Communication.
Akolo speaks fluent English, Swahili and basic French.
Margitta Engström
Ms. Margitta Engström an international strategist with extensive experience working with global life sciences and technology companies across Europe, both in academia, corporates and in consultancy. Track record of identifying and delivering growth and revenue opportunities in new markets for technology SMEs and investors. Experiencedinrestructuringbusinessprocessestocreatealignmentwithnewstrategicgoals–processesinvolvingfinance,supplychain, investment, decision making, customer services, sales & marketing – to deliver bottom-line rewards. Innovative, incisive approach, with board level managementexperience.
Margita has a proven ability to take a company’s competency or technology and to derive new applications and/or products to generate new revenue streams. Profound understanding of how to transform technology into sales revenues, with hands-on experience in R&D, Sales & Marketing and business development. She has has an in-depth knowledge of combining business models, strategy focusing on maximising value of innovation particularly in the pharmaceutical and health care industry. She has a clear understanding of the vital role of translating strategy into a workable action plan, then executing it – leveraging the organisation and its processes and introducing measures of effectiveness
Mr. Felix Bright is a Cash Management, Trade, Finance and Digital Banking expert with over 30 years experience and a strong entrepreneurial background. Felix has held various key positions at Citibank Abidjan and ECOBANK as Cash Management and E-banking manager, Cash Management Director, Western Union product Head, Deputy Group Head Transaction Services, Regional Head Transaction Banking for West and Central Africa.
As an entrepreneur, Felix founded his first computer sales and consulting company in 1989 in Burbank, California. He has also founded a computer consulting firm specialising in Computer Aided Design (CAD) and launched the first authorised AutoCAD software training center on the premises of the largest technical high school in Abidjan. In addition to founding and running BRIGHT SOLUTIONS, a consulting firm specialising in the areas of business strategy coaching, project financing and digital solutions, Felix is also a member of the Board of Directors of GOSHEN FINANCE, a financial advisory firm. He is also a shareholder and member of the executive management committee of EDUCAS CONSULTING, a start-up company specialized in E-learning solutions based in Abidjan. Most recently, Felix has joined Eagle Investment Corporation as a business angel and member of the strategic advisory committee.
Reginald (Reggie) Mark-Hansen
Mr. Reggie Mark-Hansen is a consummate HR-Business professional/Executive Coach with a passion for the adaptation of the people metrics/insights to ‘Inspire Optimal Business Performance’. His over 30 years’ corporate experience of which 24 years has been at the management and executive levels has seen him head & lead Global and Pan African HR Teams for blue-chip organizations such as The International Finance Corporation (a member of the World Bank Group), Shell Oil Petroleum Africa (SOPAF), British-American Tobacco and Exxon-Mobil, diverse experiences that has seen him accumulate a wealth of knowledge in business optimization and best in class HR practices. His international career has exposed him to diverse business environments across four Continents, USA, Europe, Africa and South East Asia in addition to expansive knowledge of over 20 African countries. He hasdemonstrated strong track record in managing organizational restructuring interventions such as the Shell Divestments and BAT – Rothmans merger which involved Pan Africa wide redundancy and salary negotiations with different Unions and staff associations.
Reggie currently heads the Predictive Excellence Company, a behaviour cantered Human Capital firm which counts as its strength its ability to work with management teams to define a people/HR intervention that aims at resolving business challenges with an eye on the bottom-line. In addition to his Chief Executive role is also the recently appointed Chairman of the Board of Xpress Gas, Ghana’s awarding winning Liquefied Petroleum Gas Company. He also the Chairman of the Ghana Institute of Journalism’s Student Financial Aid Fund, a new fund that he is working to turn into the standard bearer in student fund management in Ghana.
Reggie possesses specialist knowledge in HR strategy formulation & implementation, mergers and acquisitions, change & post-merger integration, organizational culture design. Reggie has lived and worked in the following countries, Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and United States of America. Reggie is Fellow of the Institute of Directors – Ghana. A member of the Ghana Association of Coaches. Institute of Human Resources Practitioners Ghana and the US based Human Capital Institute (HCI).
Julien Achielle
Mr Julien Achille is the Founder and Chairman of EIC Corpration, an international platform for shareholder’s Assocation, promoting financial inclusion, training of investors, portfolio management and economic intelligence. He is a member of MEDEF, lLex4.com, a digital platform, roviding 360 ° legal support for business leaders to ensure adherence to legal guidelines and in-house policies to maintain the company’s legality and business ethics.
Julien is a strategic advisor to the Center for Strategic Foresight and Research (CEPS,, an independent organization whose aim is to identify, analyze and put into perspective the technological, economic and financial factors of the contemporary world in order to accompany as well companies, institutions that states to position themselves in a global environment. He is also a non-Executive Director iCapital Ventures.
Julien is competent in SC ( Balanced Score Card), Strategic Planning, Project Management; Agile method (Scrum); Change Management, Negotiation, Financial Analysis, Securities, Portfolio Management, Tax, Skills, IT Tools: MS Office – MS Project – SAP (CRM) – Gantt Project-Blockchain –ICO (Initial Coin Offer) –STO ( Security Tokens Offer). He holds a Master of Business Administration from EDHEC Business School, Abidjan, MBA International Finance from the European Business School, France.
Amini Kajunju
Ms. Amini Kajunju is the executive director of the IUGB Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to empowering students and helping to procure the necessary resources to make the International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB) a center of excellence for higher education in West Africa.Ms. Kajunju joins the Foundation from Africa Integras, where she served as director of strategic partnerships. Africa Integras, a New York-based firm, invests in the development of education infrastructure, including academic facilities, student hostels and faculty housing at African universities.
Prior to her role with Africa Integras, Kajunju was the president and CEO of the Africa-America Institute (AAI), a New York-based non-profit dedicated to strengthening human capacity in Africa. She is the first African to serve at the helm of the oldest non-profit organization of its kind in the United States.
A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kajunju also founded the Bashi Group, an international consultancy focused on education and entrepreneurship in Africa in 2016.
With 20 years of experience in entrepreneurial and economic development, she joined AAI from the Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO), a New York-based non-profit small business development service provider serving entrepreneurs in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, where she was executive director for 10 years.
Ms. Kajunju previously served in program positions at the International Executive Service Corps (IESC) and Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and conducted field research at the Center for Humanitarian Outreach & Intercultural Exchange and spent a summer at The Carter Presidential Center.
She was honored as “Advocate of the Year” at Applause Africa’s African Diaspora Awards 2013 and was named Forbes’ 20 Young Power Women in Africa 2013. She was on the economic of innovation council of the World Economic Forum between 2015 to 2016. She sits on the board of Education Congo and JA Africa.
Mr. Mark Skews
Mr. Mark Skews is a seasoned entrepreneur with close to 30 years in the technology industry. His experience covers areas such as Innovation of business through software, Business management, Software development, Database development and management, Network creation, and Network administration.
With an education in software development as well as International Business Management Mark has been instrumental in developing productivity improving technologies for various industries, from petrochemical to hospitality.
Mark is a motivated entrepreneurial manager with vast experience in business management, software development, database development, database management, network creation and network administration.
I am interested in innovation of business through software, especially with mobile devices such as Android or iOS
Mark has recently founded his latest entrepreneurial venture AutonomousSpark, which aims to tackle healthcare issues through technology.
Noora Frelander
Ms. Noora Frelander is a startup expert from Finland. For the past three years, she has been working in tens of different projects in Finland and abroad, especially in crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. She is one of the leading crowdfunding experts in Finland. Her specialities are crowdfunding, sales, business strategies and service design. Because making crowdfunding campaigns needs a lot of different kinds of information, Noora also knows a lot of social selling, marketing, trademarks and patents. She has helped a variety of companies in different fields, such as consumer products and services, games, technology and Internet services. She has also held business planning courses in Finland as well as helped out as a mentor for different organizations that help startups.
Noora’s passion is to bring quality products and services to people’s everyday lives, and helping new entrepreneurs to take their business ideas to the next level by taking into account the customer.
Tidiane Ball
Dr. Tidiane Ball is a Medical practioner with a with a PhD. With his passion to support health care system in Mali, Tidiane has been at the forefront of integrating ICT tools into health care delivery. Noticing the urgent problems in the health sector in Mali, he created the portal website www.malisante.org in 2009. The portal provides medical information and directory of health professionals in Mali. He also launched Doctix, a start-up specialized in making medical appointments online.
With his passion to develop entrepreneurial and innovative capacity among Malian youth and to share his experiences, Tidiane founded DoniLab in 2015. Sensing the energy and drive in Mali and the potential for innovation and action of the Malian youth, Donilab provide support services to support young innovators in Mali succeed in their projects by creating value locally, by stimulating and developing their entrepreneurial projects, in all sectors. In addition, Donilab trains than 200,000 young people who enter the labor market..
Donilab is the first Malian incubator in terms of results, contributing immensely to the inclusive and sustainable development of Mali. Currely, Donilab has a have a 600 m2 hub in Bamako, equipped with a FabLab, and a second hub in Sikasso, set up to to fully invest in the agribusiness sector.
Chris Mawuli Hlovor
Mr. Chris Mawuli Hlovor is a member of International Association of Innovation Professionals, an innovation management expert, in the financial sector modelling financial products suitable for all level income groups in Bank/Non-Bank financial sector. Chris Has over 20 years of experience in sector and have worked with several financial giants in Ghana such as GCB Bank, OminiBank (OmniBSIC Bank Ghana Limited), and CDH Financial Holdings.
Chris Hlovor is currently consulting for Project Blue Moon in Receivership of defunct Savings and Loans Companies in Ghana. He is an entrepreneur passionate about reviving local business which lacks what it takes to compete with organizational super powers.
GoodMorning Parvel Enterprise is the brain child of Chris, an organization which is poised to using innovation to revolutionerize poultry and animal husbandry to ensuring food, poverty alleviation and financial freedom in Ghana and Africa
Sarah Kiden
Ms. Sarah Kiden is a technologist and researcher, working at the intersection of technology and society. As a Marie Curie Research Fellow on Open Design of Trusted Things (OpenDoTT), a joint programme between Northumbria University Newcastle and Mozilla, her research focuses on the impact of technology and the Internet for grassroots communities and neighbourhoods.
Gameli Adzaho
Mr. Gameli Adzaho is focused on ‘shaping Africa and shaping young people’. He curates Global Lab Network, a community of learners, educators, researchers, and innovators interested in applying science and technology for social impact. He is a Steering Committee Member of Africa Open Science & Hardware. Gameli champions STEM education, from the grassroots to international networks. For his work he has received awards and accolades from the British Council, Next Einstein Forum, Future Earth Network, and Shuttleworth Foundation, among others. Gameli is a Fellow of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society (German Internet Institute) and a Visiting Researcher at Universität der Künste Berlin (Berlin Open Lab). He is fascinated by community science as a tool to tackle environmental health challenges.
Alberto Gonzales
Dr. Alberto Gonzales is an experienced manager, qualitative researcher and lecturer currently working as Innovation Ecosystem Manager at EIT InnoEnergy (Spain) and as a visiting lecturer at Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland).
His fields of expertise revolve around Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship and range from Sustainable Development to Design Thinking and from New Product/Service Development to Creativity Tools. During the years I have had the opportunity to live abroad and work extensively with international partners and with projects/visits in markets such as Finland, Bahrain, US, Russia and The Netherlands among others.
Alberto is personally passionate about innovation and education and interested in projects related to sustainable development, entrepreneurship, l&d, transformation through design thinking and innovation and innovative teaching methods and pedagogy. On a different level, I have also an interest in academic research in the fields of customer involvement in product development, learning processes, co-production and knowledge transfer, especially in the field of the creative industries.
Kobby Andah
Mr. Kobby Andah has over 35 years experience in the finance and banking industry. He has Ghanaian and international experience having worked for KPMG, Securities Discount Company Ltd, The Trust Bank in Ghana and for Belgolaise Banque in London and Brussels, Sterling Bank Plc, Nigeria and Bank of Africa Tanzania Ltd. His experience spans several roles including Assurance, Enterprise Risk Management, and Financial Control with his key strengths being strategy formulation and implementation and people management.
Kobby is a Chartered Accountant and has an MBA in Finance and Banking from University of Wales, Bangor and the Manchester Business School. Prior to his present appointment, Kobby was the Managing Director for Bank of Africa Tanzania Ltd for four years during which the bank grew significantly in terms of market share, profitability and geographical presence.
Lise Birikundavyi
Ms. Lise Birikundavyi is the deputy country director and impact finance investment manager for the TRECC program in Côte d’Ivoire, an initiative started by the Jacobs Foundation. In this role, she is in charge of identifying and driving value from investments in the education technology space that can improve the quality of education in Côte d’Ivoire. Lise began her career in the hedge fund industry and her interest in the developing world is what inspired her to transition to the impact finance sector.
She has experience across the investment spectrum: from funds of funds and VCs, to being the transition CEO of a tech start-up. Lise is a CFA charterholder; she also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, where she wrote her thesis on impact investing, and a trilingual BBA from HEC Montreal. Lise is fluent in French, English and Spanish, and has a conversational level of Mandarin. She is a firm believer in using market driven initiatives as sustainable poverty alleviating solutions.
