Community

The Forum of Young Global Leaders is a community of innovators from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Search current members and alumni by year awarded, sector or region.

Yusuke Narita

Founder, Hanjuku-kaso Inc., Japan

Yusuke Narita is an economist, (social) entrepreneur, and public speaker/writer working across multiple countries and fields. He is an Assistant Professor at Yale University in the US and the founder of the startup Hanjuku-kaso Inc. in Japan. As a researcher, he develops methods that use algorithm, data, and evidence to improve social decision making. He deploys his research output to solve real-world business and policy problems, especially education and health policy issues. He is also active on the media and one of the most widely known academics in Japan. At the intersection of academia, industry, media, and policy, his work won several prizes, including The Prime Minister Prize, the Japanese government’s Open Innovation Award, MIT Technology Review’s Innovators under 35 Japan, KDDI Contribution Award, among others. He obtained a Ph.D. from MIT and a bachelor from the University of Tokyo (with the best undergraduate thesis award given to an outstanding thesis once every few years). He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Visiting Associate Professor at Hitotsubashi University, and currently hold research affiliate positions at MIT, University of Chicago, University of Tokyo, among others.

Lesley Ndlovu

Chief Executive Officer, African Risk Capacity (ARC), South Africa

Lesley Ndlovu is Chief Executive Officer of African Risk Capacity (ARC), a specialized insurance company that provides parametric insurance coverage against weather-related risks such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones. Prior to ARC, Ndlovu held senior leadership positions in the financial services sector in Bermuda, Singapore, France, the United Kingdom and South Africa. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the UN Principles of Sustainable Insurance. Under his leadership ARC underwrote the largest insurance pool in the history of the company, providing insurance coverage to 12 million Africans who are vulnerable to the devastating effects of natural disasters.

Billy Ng Wai-Lung

Assistant Professor, School of Pharmacy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Professor Billy Wai-Lung Ng is an Assistant Professor at the School of Pharmacy at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he leads the Laboratory of Chemical Biology & Drug Discovery. He has successfully used cutting-edge technologies to develop therapeutic molecules for combating viral pandemics and aging-related diseases. Professor Ng and his international team were the first to discover that an approved HCV drug can be repurposed for the treatment of COVID-19. He is currently creating disruptive therapeutic molecules with the ultimate goal to eradicate cancers and neurodegenerative diseases. Professor Ng completed his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and the University of Oxford after receiving his Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Chemistry from CUHK. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during his graduate study. He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Marie Curie Fellowship, Croucher Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, and Hong Kong PhD Fellowship.

Avital Saskia Niño de Rivera Cover

Co-Founder and Spokeswoman, Reinserta -Un Mexico A.C-, Mexico

Saskia is a Mexican-American national. She has a Master’s in Human Rights and Fundamental Principles and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She is the President of the non-profit organization Reinserta, which she founded when she was 24 years old, in order to fight for a safer Mexico through its penitentiary system. Previously, she worked at the National Anti-Kidnap Coordination of the Mexican Secretariat of Government. In 2015, she led the creation of the “maternity in prison” section of the Criminal Execution Law, and was invited to create and work for the Social Responsibility Agenda 2015-2016. In 2014, Saskia participated in a number of workshops for the Mexican criminal system reform. Saskia was selected as a Mexican leader of the women’ s first generation of Raising Talent Women’ s Forum and as one of the 3,000 Ashoka Fellows. She was nominated for the Nelson Mandela – Graça Machel Innovation Awards 2016 and was named “Next Generation Leader” by Time Magazine. She was awarded with the UBS Visionaries 2016 prize, is recognized by Global Shapers and Women’ s Forum Rising Talent México, and is a Vital Voices Ambassador as of 2016. She received an American School Foundation Leadership award in 2006, was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2015, was named a Next Generation Leaders by TIME Magazine in 2015, and was selected by FORBES Magazine in 2016 as one of the TOP 100 powerful women. Saskia was selected as a 2019 Global Leadership Award Honoree and a VVLead Ambassador. Saskia works within the prisons and the country’s most dangerous neighborhoods in order to change the extremely rough environments that funnel Mexicans into crime.

Wawira Njiru

Founder and Executive Director, Food for Education, Kenya

Wawira is the founder of Food for Education an organisation that is feeding Africa’s future through innovative, cutting-edge technology. Food for Education has created a sustainable model of efficiently providing locally sourced, high quality, nutritious meals to public primary school children. Their scalable, efficient model is creating the first sustainable path to solve the child nutrition crisis for 500 million African children. She is a Ford Foundation Global Fellow, the youngest recipient of the University of South Australia’s alumni award 2017, a 2018 Rainer Arnhold Fellow, a recipient of the Builders of Africa Award 2018 and one of 2018’s Top 40 under 40 women in Kenya. She is also the first recipient of the Global Citizen Youth Leadership Prize 2018 presented by Cisco.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah

Minister of Information, Ministry of Information and Media Relations of Ghana, Ghana

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah is Minister of Information and Member of Parliament. He is a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Ghana, and serves on the Finance and Constitutional Committees of Parliament.

Faraja Nyalandu

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Shule Direct, Tanzania

Faraja Nyalandu is an award-winning social entrepreneur, committed to promoting systemic change in digital learning in primary and secondary education in Africa. She founded Shule Direct in 2013, a social enterprise that digitises national curriculums and leverages technology and innovative teaching approaches to improve learning outcomes for all children and youth.

Yoichi Ochiai

Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba, Japan

Yoichi Ochiai is an award-winning digital media artist, a recognized scholar, entrepreneur and media influencer. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, specializing in media art, human computer interactions and its application, and Head of the Digital Nature Laboratory. He is also Founder of Pixie Dust Technologies, a technology company developing digital fabrication through artificial intelligence-based solutions. Ochiai has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2015 World Technology Award, 2016 Prix Ars Electronica, European Union STARTS Prize, Laval Virtual Award and many others. He is the author of "The Century of Enchantment (Planets)" and "Survival Strategy of Super AI Era”. He has also given many lectures in Japan and abroad and at symposiums such as TEDxTokyo and at SEMICON Japan. Ochiai received his PhD in Applied Computer Science from the University of Tokyo.

Head of Research Development Center for Digital Nature, University of Tsukuba
Associate Professor, University of Tsukuba
Visiting Professor, Osaka University of Arts
Visiting Professor, Kyoto City University of Arts
Visiting Professor, Kanazawa College of Art
Visiting Professor, Digital Hollywood University
Principal Investigator of JST CREST xDiversity
Osaka, Kansai, Japan Expo2025 Site Theme Producer
Board Member of VR Consortium
Board Member of Mitoh Foundation
Board Member of xDiversity
General, Intellectual Property Strategy, Cabinet Office, Expert Committee Member
Digital Reform-Related Legislation Working Group, Committee Member
Cabinet Office "Moonshot" Research and Development Program Visionary Conference Member and Moonshot Ambassador
Cabinet Secretariat's Conference on Building a Social Security System for All Generations, Committee Member
Economic and Industrial Policy New Axis at the Industrial Structure Council, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Committee Member
World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders 2022 Members
Digital Agency, Digital Day Review Committee Member
Committee Member of the Cultural Affairs Council
Pixie Dust Technologies.Inc CEO

Chinny Ogunro

Chief Operating Officer, The Africa Center, USA

Dr. Chinny Ogunro is the Chief Operating Officer of The Africa Center, a New York based non-profit that seeks to serve as a hub for the exchange of ideas around culture, business, and policy related to the continent, and in the spirit of collaboration and engagement with individuals and institutions who share the Center’s values. The mission of the organisation is guided by a leadership team that includes Board Co-Chairs Chelsea Clinton and Hadeel Ibrahim, and Board President Halima Aliko Dangote.

Previously, she was the Chief Executive Officer of WellSpring Health, an Africa-focused integrated care consortium backed by DAI, committed to delivering quality, affordable healthcare at scale. Chinny is a co-founder of Africa Health Holdings (AHH), a healthcare investment and operations company in which she raised over $13M in investor funding. AHH was born out of her doctoral research and her first company, CarePoint Hospitals and Clinics.

Chinny also currently serves as Director of Health Research at the Center for the Study of the Economies of Africa, where her research has explored innovative business models for health care delivery in growth economies, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She was also a Senior Director at BroadReach Group, responsible for technology implementation and operational excellence. She is the founder of Company Is You, a professional development edtech firm that prepares individuals and companies for the future of work.

Her work in healthcare operations has delivered high-quality, low-cost healthcare to over 40,000 patients across West Africa and India. Her research has received over $700,000 in direct support from organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank.

Chinny is an advisory board member at Growth Capital—the investment arm of CCHub, a Steering Committee member of the Africa Leadership Academy’s Health Network, serves on the leadership committee of MIT Solve, and is frequently a guest lecturer at top international business schools. She has previously worked at Morgan Stanley, Veralon Partners, and provided long-term consultancy for the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health, the U.N. Special Envoy for Malaria, as well as multiple other development and partner organizations.

Chinny holds a Ph.D in Health Management (Technology and Operations Management, Strategy) from the Harvard Business School, a M.A. in Health Administration from Cornell University, and Bachelors degrees from Stanford University.

Fredros Okumu

Director, Science, Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Tanzania

Fredros Okumu is the Director of Science at Ifakara Health Insitute (IHI). Fredros' work has attracted numerous awards and recognition, including the 2009 American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Young Investigator Award; 2014 Al Jazeera Lifelines Health Hero; 2016 Foreign Policy Global Thinker; and 2018 Quartz Africa Innovator. He is an important voice at the intersection of public health and the environment in Africa.

Mohammad Salem Omaid

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, iBnk.ae, United Arab Emirates

Dr. (Prof) Mohammad Salem Omaid has a storied career as a banker. In his career span of over 17 years, Dr. Omaid handled diverse roles having rich & extensive experience in Finance & Accounting, Corporate Accounts, Trade Finance, Corporate Credit Financing, Operational Banking, Investment Banking and Retail Banking. His association with the banking industry & his pioneering contribution towards the reformation of the banking structure is worth mentioning. He has been the pillar of many innovational projects and digitizing the economy. Over the years, Dr. Omaid developed himself as a leader with calculated thinking coupled with business intelligence and a capacity to take decisions which are result oriented. He developed himself as a strategist with excellence in formulating, developing & implementing business plans and policies to ensure attainment of business goals and profitable sell-though.
Presently he is the founder & CEO of a start-up innovation in the UAE which is a B2B embedded digital marketplace platform and disruptive in nature, which will assist in breaking, disrupting, facilitating, widening & creating a new business chapter not only in the UAE but the entire MENA region and other emerging markets. It will also bring-in a transformation into the "brick & mortar" banking concept with the implementation of BaaS and many other innovative transformations into the e-commerce market.
Dr. Omaid’s expertise and knowledge for a sustainable growth earned him several international accreditations. He has been a motivational speaker on many occasions across the globe while attending various felicitation programs.
He is playing a great role in shaping the young minds in the country & globally by way of sponsoring sports, health-drives and education.

Oluseun Onigbinde

Co-Founder and Global Director, Budgit, Inc., Nigeria

Oluseun Onigbinde is the co-founder and Director of BudgIT, a global civic organization that works to intersect civic education with institutional accountability across Africa. In 2011, he launched Nigeria's largest fiscal transparency group, known as BudgIT, which utilizes the value in public data, giving citizens radical insights into how public resources are managed. He led a team that mainstreamed the blend of data and design through infographics, having had a strong background and experience in strategy consulting, product development, data analytics, digital media, data journalism, and the use of social media for "factivism". Over the years, Mr. Onigbinde has utilized his technical knowledge to stimulate the use of data, thereby crafting insights for industry and civic decisions. Through BudgIT, his approach to the use of data has reached over 20 million citizens, cultivating and encouraging their interest in data and its value to communities. Oluseun Onigbinde is a recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship, Future Africa Awards, Quartz Africa 30 Innovators Award, Aspen New Voices Fellowship, Melvin Jones Fellowship, and Stanford Draper Hill Summer Fellowship. As a Knight Innovation Fellow, he also worked with the International Center for Journalists/Gates Foundation on rethinking health journalism in Nigeria. Oluseun has worked on several projects funded by MacArthur Foundation, Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, OXFAM, and Omidyar Network.