Keynote and Plenary Presenters

Nelson Amo is a business development expert with experience across several African countries and sectors. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Innohub, a business accelerator and impact investment platform that supports Small and Growing Businesses (SGBs) to scale. Innohub supports business that demonstrate clear impact along the triple bottom-line: PEOPLE, PLANET AND SHARED PROSPERITY. He served as Grant Manager for the $3.2m Ghana Climate Venture Facility with funding from the World Bank, leading to the set-up of a climate focused SME fund and a technical assistance program to support the growth of SMEs in the climate and green sectors. Nelson is an alumnus of the Oxford University Said Business School, and holds a Certificate in “Development Programme in Entrepreneurship” from the Leeds University Business School. He also has an MSc. in Development Studies from LSE, with a special interest in Business Model Innovation at the bottom of the Pyramid. Nelson is driven by the passion to promote social innovation and enterprising solutions to poverty and underdevelopment.

     
Anita Brown-Graham leads the ncIMPACT Initiative at the University of North Carolina School of Government. Focused on helping public officials solve complex issues, the ncIMPACT Initiative specializes in using cross-sector collaboratives to positively impact big challenges. Brown-Graham was previously director of the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State University. She is a William C. Friday Fellow, American Marshall Fellow, Eisenhower Fellow, and a White House Champion of Change award recipient. J.D. – UNC School of Law; B.A. – Louisiana State University

Thomas M. Crea, PhD, MSW, is Professor, Chair of Global Practice, and Assistant Dean of Global Programs at the School of Social Work, Boston College. He is a former clinical social worker with previous experience as a mental health therapist for severely emotionally disturbed children, and as a foster care adoption worker and supervisor providing home study assessments and post-placement support to families. Dr. Crea leads local, national, and international research projects related to social interventions for vulnerable children and families. This research focuses on the intersections of child welfare, refugee social protection and education, and strengthening humanitarian aid and international development programs. Dr. Crea’s projects have been funded by multiple sources such as the US Department of Agriculture, the Porticus Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Development, and others. These projects span multiple countries, which in addition to the U.S. have included Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Palestine, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Professor William Elliott is a leading researcher in the fields of college savings accounts, college debt, and wealth inequality. Shaped by his personal roots in poverty in a small steel mill city in Pennsylvania, Professor Elliott pursues challenging individual beliefs and cultural values that surround funding for college, student debt, inequality, systemic patterns of poverty, and educational justice. Being refined in poverty allows him to approach questions in his research differently. His research adds fuel to debates about how to imagine ways of financing college other than by student debt. He believes that there are real possibilities and his research bears this out. He asks if college education can truly be the great equalizer it is meant to be when wealth inequality remains the defining feature of American society. He calls for the next great wealth transfer in America. The seemingly naive premise behind Professor Elliott’s research is that there are better, more effective, and more just ways of financing college and delivering on the promise of the American dream. He suggests, people must just be shown once again that more is possible.

Dr. Ashu Handa is an economist working on poverty, health and human development in sub-Saharan Africa. He is co-PI of The Transfer Project, a regional initiative with UNICEF and FAO to understand the broad effects of government sponsored cash transfer programs in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently studying the long-term effects of cash transfers in Zambia and Malawi. Handa’s recent work focuses on the longer term effects of national poverty alleviation programs. He received funding from the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3IE) to conduct a 7-year follow-up survey on the sample for the Zambia Child grant Evaluations study. He also received funding from the NIH/NIA to conduct an eight-year follow-up of the cohort used to evaluate the Malawi Social Cash Transfer Program.

Robert Hakiza is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID). A refugee from Congo, Robert is also a founding and steering committee member of the Refugee-Led Organization Network (RELON Uganda) and the Global Refugee Led Network (GRN). He is the Chairperson of the African Refugee Led Network (ARN). He is graduate of the Catholic University of Bukavu in DRC with a degree in Agriculture. He also holds a certificate in forced migration from the International Summer School of forced migration of Oxford University, in United Kingdom. Robert is also a TED Fellow, an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, and an Obama Foundation Fellow. In 2013 Robert worked as an assistant researcher in Uganda with The Humanitarian Innovation Project (HIP) of the University of Oxford, and YARID in 2016 became the first refugee-led organization to win the $100,000 Ockenden International Prize, which recognizes work promoting the self-reliance of refugees and displaced people.

Elias Mpofu, Ph.D., DEd, CRC, FASROC, MAPS, is professor of health sciences at the University of North Texas, and visiting professor with the University of Johannesburg. He presently Adjunct Research Professor with the Western Sydney University’s  Translational Health Research Institute (Campbell Campus) (2019-2022), and Honorary  Professor of  Health Sciences at the University of Sydney (2017- present), besides other interntional affiliations.  A rehabilitation psychologist, Elias Mpofu is recipient of research awards in the health sciences including the the South African National Research Foundation, Australia Research Council, US National Science Foundation,  US. National Institutes of Health [NIH]   and the US National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research.

Bradley Opere is a co-founder of FarmMoja and Otto. He holds a degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Cain Scholar, served on the Board of Trustees and was Student Body President. Bradley is a Senior Consultant at Axum. He works with both private sector and public sector actors supporting them supporting them on strategy, human centered design and implementation support. Prior to working at Axum, Bradley worked as a consultant at both Dalberg Advisors and McKinsey & Company. Before that, he was a private equity analyst working for Pactorum, who managed Fairfax Africa’s USD 1Billion portfolio in Africa.

Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, ACRN, FSAHM, FAAN is dean and professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Cizik School of Nursing. She has expertise in public health nursing, adolescent health, HIV/STI prevention, intervention development, RCTs, mobile technology, and predictive modeling. With wide-ranging experience working in underserved communities in the U.S. and abroad, she is currently conducting HIV prevention and stress reduction research with youth experiencing homelessness. She is currently leading two NIH-funded R01 RCTs testing the efficacy of an ecological momentary intervention (EMI) and an EMI-enhanced nurse case management HIV prevention and care coordination intervention among youth 16-25 experiencing homelessness. She serves as Director of the Developmental Core of the Texas Developmental-CFAR and co-director of the Substance Use Scientific Working Group. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from The Ohio State University, her master’s degree in Public Health Nursing from Case Western Reserve University, and DrPH at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health. She is a former Visiting Professor at the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies.

Mathias Zimba, MA, BA (DS) Mathias Zimba is a 47-year-old Zambian, currently working with Rising Fountains Development Programme (RFDP) as Executive Director providing inspirational and impactful leadership of RFDP in Zambia and ensuring programme development and evolution of RFDP programmes in Zambia. He is responsible for overall leadership of the organizational on all programmatic and administrative matters. He is a founder and Executive Director for RFDP Zambia and has been working with RFDP Zambia for more 15 years leading the Zambia Team and also worked as a Programme Manager for the RFDP’s Zambia USAID/ABT Associate Funded Maternal and Child Health Project. Mathias is a Social Development Practioner with 26 years of practical experience in Project and Programme Management. Before founding RFDP Zambia, he worked for the Lutheran World Service/Rural Community Development and Motivation Programme, Micro Bankers Trust, EU Funded Project for the Reduction of Poverty and MBT’s Rural Finance Programme an IFAD Funded Project. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in Development Studies from the University of Lusaka (UNILUS) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Development Studies from the information and Communications University (ICU). He is currently pursuing a second master’s degree in international Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid with Kalu Institute, Spain.