Conference Speakers
2020 Speakers
Vanessa Nakate
is a climate activist from Uganda . She was the First Fridays For Future climate activist in Uganda and founder of the Rise up Climate Movement in order to amplify the voices of activists from Africa. Her work includes raising awareness to the danger of climate change, the causes and the impacts. She co-led the campaign, Save Congo rainforest which is facing massive deforestation. This campaign later spread to other countries from Africa to Europe. She is currently working on a project that involves installation of solar and institutional stoves in schools.
Tamuka Martin Chidyausiku, Ph.D (last name pronounced Chi-gee-ya-oo-cee-coo)
was born and raised in Gweru, Zimbabwe and came to America 10 years ago for his undergraduate university. He graduated Cum Laude from the oldest Historically Black College in South Carolina; Claflin University then set his sights on applications of Protein Biochemistry. After matriculating through the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research post-Baccalaureate scholars program in Cambrdige, MA, Tamuka blazed a new trail and completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle. Today he is a bona fide post-doctoral biochemistry researcher at the Institute for Protein Design where his work on computational biology and protein design has been published in many high impact journals. Tamuka, or Dr. Muk as he is affectionately called by his online students believes that representation matters and that URM visibility is the key to STEAMulating the future generation of diverse problem solvers so he moonlights as a STEM educator on his YouTube channel (@TamukaInvestments) focusing on “Hip Hop Biochemistry”.
Elsa Mengistu
is a climate justice advocate, international speaker, consultant, and student whose work focuses on youth empowerment and intersectionality. She is the former director of operations and logistics at Zero Hour, a grassroots climate organization intent on gaining support for the Youth Climate Movement. She is a freshman at Howard University and native of Ethiopia. Mengistu is an avid organizer and activist who started her work in middle school and high school. She has advocated for changes on various issues, including electoral politics, racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, and women’s rights, through local organizations and school clubs. She has also worked on gun violence prevention and was one of the lead youth organizers for her local March For Our Lives chapter. In her role with Zero Hour, she advocated for climate justice through the organization of the Global Youth Climate March, Summit, and through various campaigns. Mengistu also serves on the Youth Advisory Board for Young Voices for the Planet, an organization that highlights youth from across the world through documentaries. In 2019, she was named as one of Grist’s 50 Fixers, a group of up-and-coming individuals working on innovative solutions to fix the biggest challenges that face our globe.
Currently, Elsa is serving on the Steering Committee for Power Shift 2020, which is planning 4,000 person convening to mobilize for climate action in 2021 and is working with Generation Green, an organization committed to uplifting and connecting Black environmentalists across the world. Elsa’s work for the majority of 2020 is focused on expanding industries and movement spaces to make space for underrepresented voices and perspectives.
Natalie Mebane
Natalie's father is from Braddock Pennsylvania; a town next to Pittsburgh whose claim to fame is having such a high concentration of pollutive industry for its size. As a child, she did not understand the flare in the distance outside her grandmother’s house that was put there decades before she was born and still burns brightly today, but she knew it scared her. What was burning in the distance was a mystery to 8 year old Natalie, but as an adult, she has learned that she had every reason to be fearful.
Her mother’s family is from the Caribbean. Going to visit them over her summer breaks, gave her an appreciation for some of the most beautiful places she could imagine. She still goes to these places, but they are not how she remembered them growing up. Her favorite beach is being destroyed by sea level rise; erosion that she can see in the span of her lifetime. Knowing that it may not exist for young kids alive today when they reach her age, is something she cannot comprehend. The flares are still burning by her grandmother’s home in Braddock and the places that hold her most precious memories are disappearing in front of her. She cannot let them go without a fight.
Natalie was introduced to the power of grassroots organizing after attending the Power Shift conference in 2007. She realized that as a new graduate with an environmental degree, it wasn’t enough to know why climate change was the greatest threat to human civilization; she needed to organize to combat it. She received training in grassroots organizing and political advocacy from Wellstone Action. As a grassroots organizer, she developed, led and implemented campaigns with communities, to work with the local, state and federal government on coal fired power plants, climate legislation, and clean energy.
Natalie is on the board of directors of the Power Shift Network and Young Voices for the Planet. She is an adult mentor for the international youth climate organization Zero Hour, serving on the advocacy and finance teams. Natalie works with youth across the country to build a powerful and inclusive movement of activists leading the way to a just and sustainable future. Natalie is the co-founder of the National Children’s Campaign and is the vice president of government relations and public policy. She was the dirty fuels lobbyist for the national Sierra Club from 2015 until July of 2019, fighting the expansion of oil, gas, and pipelines and working to protect public lands. Today, as the U.S. policy director of 350.org, she works to influence our federal government to phase out fossil fuels and justly transition to an economy run by 100 percent clean and renewable energy.
Oladosu Adenike
is a Nigerian climate activist, eco-feminist and agricultural economist. She studied at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi in Nigeria. Oladosu founded an organization called LeadClimate, she is also the initiator of Fridays For Future movement in Nigeria. She specializes in equality, security and peace building across Africa.
Ife Kilimanjaro
PhD works as Senior Director of Network Engagement for the U.S. Climate Action Network, a network of 170+ organizations working together to address the climate crisis. She has dedicated her life to working alongside many in the environmental, climate and food justice movements who are challenging exploitative socio-economic-political systems and co-creating the basis for a new, just, and sustainable world for all. Dr. Ife co-founded The Wind & The Warrior, a collective dedicated to healing people, communities and ecosystems through integrating social activism and spiritual practice.
Nyema Clark
Seattle native, Nyema Clark is founder and Director of Nurturing Roots Farm located on Beacon Hill, a program committed to addressing food justice issues in the community. She currently hosts workshops ranging from germination to systemic food oppression participating on panels and lectures, sharing her journey as a black female entrepreneur. She is also an organizing keyholder of the Black Power Epicenter Collective. As a black small business owner and founder of Avenue South, she produces handmade natural culinary and body products. Nyema is committed to enriching underserved communities, her strength and overall goal is founded in youth empowerment and community economic sustainability.
2019 Keynote Speaker
Francis Abugbilla
Francis Abugbilla is a doctoral researcher in International Studies and the International Policy Institute fellow at the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He researches on conflict resolution and peace building mechanisms in post-conflict societies. His dissertation focuses on how post-conflict peace building mechanisms affect the prospects of reconciliation in Africa.
Francis was born and raised in Kpantarigo, a small farming community which is not on the map of Ghana and does not have electricity. He walked for a long distance to attend his elementary school at a neighboring community because Kpantarigo had not got a school and he used kerosene lantern to study at night. The lack of electricity makes it impossible for the pupils to have practical computer lessons which is an examinable subject at the end of the junior high school exams. It is in the light of this challenge that Francis wants to bring solar electricity to the school, the teachers’ quarters, and eventually the entire community and other communities in the future.
Currently, he is collaborating with students at the Clean Energy Institute, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington to install solar panels at the school. He is also applying for grants to extend the project to the community. With his team, they are seeking to partner with KiloWatts for Humanity, a local Seattle NGO. AfriKids Ghana, a child rights NGO that is also working on renewable energy in communities without electricity in Ghana has agreed to collaborate with them. The funds from the Marcy Migdal Fellowship helped Francis and his team to install solar panels at the school and teachers’ quarters in the summer of 2018. He has fundraised over $1000.00 to buy another solar panel in the summer and buy a modem that will provide internet in the school.
2019 Panelists
Peres Owino
This Kenyan born, award-winning storyteller’s directorial debut, “BOUND: Africans vs AfricanAmericans” (BOUND) played several festivals around the world, winning the 2014 Women In Film- Lena Sharpe Award at Seattle International Film Festival, the 2015 Audience Award for Best Documentary at Pan African Film Festival and 2015 Best Film Directed by a Woman of Color Award at NYC’s African Diaspora Film Festival. BOUND screened at universities like Harvard and Columbia and is currently available on iTunes, Amazon and the Urban Movie Channel. Her latest screenplay, “The Basket Weaver”, winner of the 2015 Meryl Streep Writer’s Lab Competition, 2018 ISA Fast Track Fellowship and finalist of the 2018 Universal Studios Writing Competition and 2015 Hollywood Screenplay Contest is currently in pre-production. “Seasons of Love”, which she co-wrote with Sharon Brathwaite, was produced by Taraji P. Henson and earned them a 2015 NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Television Movie. Her writing/directing resume also includes original works for the stage with “Cut” which premiered at Walt Disney Concert Hall’s REDCAT and “Beauty For Ashes”. A commanding actress and an LA Ovation nominee Peres has appeared in dozens of plays in Los Angeles and New York, playing some of the theater’s most coveted roles; Hamlet and Lady Macbeth and continues to build on her film and TV resume. A Groundlings alumni and standup comedian she sometimes performs standup across Los Angeles and a collection of her musings are featured in her debut novel, “On The Verge”.
Simon Okelo
Simon Okelo founded One Vibe. Raised in the slums of Manyatta in Kisumu, Simon discovered his own potential in art and music, organizing “Unite the People” Concerts in Kisumu in the wake of the 2007 post-election violence. Simon honed his skills in the non-profit business as director at Young Generation Center in Kisumu, Field Director for Africa for Solace International, and Associate Director for MED25 International. Simon started One Vibe to establish a Music & Art Center in Kisumu as a platform to encourage its citizens to participate in critical engagement of culture, art, music, technology, and education to inspire youth to realize their full potential, avoid drugs and violence, and create a sustainable future.
Nourah Yonous
Nourah Yonous is first and foremost, a proud Pan-Afrikan: born and raised. She has roots deeply embedded in social justice work; particularly in gender/racial equity and cross cultural-multifaceted-intersectional grassroots community development. Nourah is currently a Founder and Executive Director at African Women Business Alliance- (AWBA), grassroots, strength-based, data-focused, holistic and culturally responsive platform for/by black women diaspora for an inclusive economy. We are pioneering a new understanding of disaggregated data in entrepreneurship; as a case study to ending poverty and leveling the playing field for both men and women. Nourah is a former advocate with CARE Int’l on the maternal crisis, education, child marriage, and poverty in the global south. Nourah is a former Education Organizer at OneAmerica, Capacity-Building Program Manager at Nonprofit Assistance Center, Development Director at East African Community Center, and a Community Leadership Institute Fellow at Puget Sound Sage. She’s a 2019 Cohort for Public Program at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Discovery Center where she has the privilege and honor to co-curates and co-designs public awareness programs that foster inclusion and bring forth the values and voices of the local community. Nourah holds Two BA's in Political Science, Feminist Studies/Theory, and Legal Studies/Pre-law with a concentration on law, gender politics, and social change from University of California Santa Cruz, UCSC. Nourah’s own immigrant narrative and trajectory have shaped her life’s mission work; which centers global south/black feminism and deeply connects with Audre Lorde’s work on intersectionality:” There’s no hierarchy of oppression. There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” Nourah is also a proud mother to her sun/champ, Abdel’Razak, and a Siberian husky puppy, Neptune.
2019 Workshop Leaders
Arif Gursel
A serial and social entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience gained from a unique blend of professional backgrounds and responsibilities. Arif specializes in product development, technology strategy, and business model development equipped to lead initiatives and people toward common goals. As a highly adaptable communicator and motivator, he works effectively with diverse management styles and people across all levels of an organization. He credits his success to a blend of curiosity, creativity, persistence, commitment, passion, and realistic “optimism".Arif is most passionate about consumer behavior in the digital space and empowering underserved communities through S.T.E.A.M. education. Specifically, devising strategies that drive physical interactions and engagements from digital touch points, while simultaneously working to diversify technology and entrepreneurship. He loves design in all forms, specifically the simple and beautiful things that delight us. His company VIBEHEAVY continues to serve as a startup lab that creates and spins out new brands, products, and services across multiple industry verticals with a specialty in entertainment, fashion, and hospitality. Similarly, his nonprofit, P.A.C.E., follows a technology startup model. However, it focuses on initiatives across Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Arts, and Media (S.T.E.A.M) education and activism.When his is not building businesses or serving his community, you can often find him working hard to maintain his status as a super dad, sketching/wireframing, trying new coding trends, reading about concepts in business strategy, and generally doing things to leave the planet a better place than he found it.Arif is currently the Director of Product and Ecosystem Partnerships for Heroku, a Salesforce Company.
Claire Gwayi-Chore
Claire Gwayi-Chore is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in the Global Health Implementation Science programme at the University of Washington School of Public Health in the Department of Global Health. She is a global health specialist with extensive experience implementing large-scale school- and community-based interventions within impact evaluation settings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Her interests include: conducting implementations science (IS) research in LMICs, including a cultural adaptation of IS methods and tools for global health practice; capacity building of community health workers; implementing and evaluating community-based and led interventions; scaling interventions for sustainability, and community-level health systems strengthening. She has more than five years of experience providing consulting and technical advisory support to Ministries of Health and Education and to public and private sector partners implementing public health initiatives in multiple countries in East, West and Southeast Africa, South Asia, and in the United States. Claire is passionate about working towards health and economic empowerment and poverty alleviation through community-based participatory research; capacity building of African research institutes and public health professionals; and mentorship, specifically for girls and young women of color.
Isaiah Udotong
Isaiah Udotong is a Nigerian American who focuses on engineering prosperous nations on the African continent. He graduated from MIT in 2018 and worked at Facebook as a software engineer. He is currently an entrepreneur in Nigeria running his own company Releaf. Releaf develops technology to light-process and deliver raw materials for factories in Nigeria. This company is backed by YCombinator. We started with the Vegetable Oil industry. He has been based in Nigeria since Jan 2018.
Tamuka Martin Chidyausiku
Tamuka Martin Chidyausiku was born and raised in Gweru, Zimbabwe and came to America 10 years ago for his undergraduate university. He graduated Cum Laude from the oldest Historically Black College in South Carolina; Claflin University then set his sights on applications of Protein Biochemistry. After matriculating through the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research post-Baccalaureate scholars program, Tamuka blazed a new trail to the University of Washington in Seattle. Today he is a bona fide research scientist at the Institute for Protein Design studying computational biology and protein design. Tamuka, or Muk as he is affectionately called by his online students, is also a graduate student in the Biochemistry department where he is launching his Instagram and YouTube class on “Hip Hop Biochemistry @TamukaInvestments”. will be graduating this June as the 1st Black PhD candidate in the Biological Physics Structure and Design program as well as in the whole Institute for Protein Design. As an openly gay, black international student, Tamuka believes that representation matters and visibility is the key to STEMulating the future generation of diverse scientists. To this end Tamuka also founded and is the CEO of one of the Foster Business School’s Environmental Innovation Challenge startup company winners and one of this year’s conference sponsors; the Chibage Chip. This agritech company reflects Tamuka’s vision of a more equitable society with Africa leading the charge in the new global market.
Marcone Ribeiro
Marcone Ribeiro is an activist by nature, social entrepreneur, mentor, and speaker that has helped to increase educational opportunities for underprivileged people in his local Community. He founded Coque Connecta, a non-profit organization that uses education to empower people from the favelas (slums). He has worked with international organizations on projects focused on promoting awareness on diversity (race, gender, and disability) and He has led a mentorship programme to support young leaders around Brazil in developing their own Social Project focused on implementing the Sustainable Development Goals designed by the United Nations. And he is also an ambassador at Politize! an NPO that aims to democratize the political understanding in Brazil.
Jéssica Alface
Jéssica Alface is an industrial Chemistry student at the Chemistry Department in the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique Maputo. Born and raised in Mozambique – Maputo, she is the last born of five siblings. Due to the tragic event on February 2017 where an open landfill collapsed and killed citizens living on that area, she gained interest in environmental concerns of her country and became an activist that is advocating and fighting for climate action and environmental sustainability in Mozambique. She is currently working on the Greenway project founded and developed by her, with the goal of empowering more sustainable and environmental practices, hoping to eliminate the need of open landfills in Mozambique, introducing the culture of recycling and increasing public health. She believes that with science and research it is possible to develop alternatives with waste than can serve as an income for the population and uplift the economy of undeveloped countries such as hers. Jéssica is also certain that the youth is the key for future development of the community, the combination of creativity, education and leadership can help enhance our society and build a better future for generations to come.