Akili Dada has an international board - with representatives in both Kenya and the United States. The board also draws technical support from a council of advisors.

Board

Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg; Founder and Executive Director (Belmont, California and Nairobi, Kenya)

Born and raised in Kenya, Wanjiru moved to the United States at the age of 14.  After completing High School in Denver, Colorado and earning a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from Whitman College she moved to the University of Minnesota. There Wanjiru earned a Masters and Ph.D degrees in Political Science.   When not working for Akili Dada, she is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco.  Her research and teaching interests center around issues of gender, women's politics, ethnic politics, and development.  She is currently working on a project researching the impact of philanthropy in Africa, and writing a book on the impact of ethnic politics on the struggle for women’s rights in Kenya.

For Wanjiru, Akili Dada is the realization of her vision for an organization that makes possible for other young women the educational opportunities she has been so fortunate to experience.  She is driven to make the resources that are so plentiful in the U.S. available to deserving young women in Africa, and to empower women on the continent so that they can take their proper place at the decision-making table. 

 She brings to the organization a passionate commitment to women’s empowerment informed by extensive travel, work, research, and life experiences with women’s movements across Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda and much of Southern Africa.

 Wanjiru and her husband Isaac make their home in Belmont, California with frequent travel to Kenya.  In her free time she enjoys organic gardening, entertaining guests, sewing, making jewelry, home improvement projects and watching mindless T.V.  She is also involved in her church at Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Mountain View, California.

 You can contact Wanjiru at: wanjiru@akilidada.org 

or read her blog at : http://wanjirukr.blogspot.com/

Ashley Noelle Biser; Co-founder and Board Treasurer (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Ashley N. Biser is a graduate student in Political Science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  She is a co-founder of Akili Dada and she shares with Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg a desire to extend the incredible educational opportunities that have been afforded her to women in underprivileged areas around the globe.  Having attended a women’s college herself, Ashley has been lucky enough to have a great many strong women as her role models and mentors.  The Madeira scholarship is named after her grandmother, Miriam Madeira Gingrich.

Ashley was born in Rochester, NY and earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College.  She moved to Minneapolis in 2000 and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in political theory.  She taught her first class, “Power and Choice,” in the summer of 2004 and is now working as an Assistant Editor of Political Theory: An International Journal of Political Philosophy.  Her research is on the political thought of Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger and she is writing a dissertation on the political implications of genetic technologies, which she plans to complete in 2008.  In addition to her work with Akili Dada, Ashley serves in a number of capacities at the First Universalist Church of Minneapolis, where she is a member of the Association of Universalist Women.  Her free time is spent playing the violin for the Linden Hills Chamber Orchestra and rowing on the Mississippi River.

As a co-founder of a mentoring program for incoming students in the Political Science department, Ashley has a long-standing interest in mentoring and is excited to work with Akili Dada to ensure that our students are connected to equally amazing women in their communities.   

You can contact Ashley at: abiser@akilidada.org

Mueni Elizabeth Maluki; Co-founder and Board Secretary (Nairobi, Kenya) 

Mueni brings to Akili Dada a commitment to women’s education as well as training and experience in accounting.  She is responsible for the early success of Akili Dada's work in Kenya as she devoted tireless hours to get the organization off the ground.  She holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce with special focus on Accounting.  Now working as an inspector with Kenya’s National Hospital Insurance Fund, Mueni is also in the final stages of a Master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Nairobi and concurrently pursuing a diploma in non-profit management.

Jill Marie Jarvis; Board Chair (New York, New York)

Jill is a writer hailing from the Northwestern United States, but has made her home in New York City.  At present, she teaches literature and writing to college-bound high school students from low-income neighborhoods of the city and also works as a college exam preparation tutor.  She is also a graduate student in the Creative Writing program at Sarah Lawrence College, where she is hard at work writing her first novel. 

Jill learned at a young age about the transformative power of education, vowing even as a child to let nothing stop her in the pursuit of her own. Her inquisitive intellect has led her far from home.  While a student in Religious Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, Jill elected to spend her third year in Sri Lanka.  The focus of her studies there was upon the diversity of Sri Lanka’s religious communities and the Sinhala language.  Upon her graduation from Whitman, Jill received a Fulbright Fellowship to return to Sri Lanka for a second year of study, wherein she researched the history of the order of Buddhist nuns and continued to study Sinhala; she also had the opportunity to travel to India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. Such experiences have honed her commitment to the vital necessity of intercultural dialogue and exchange and to the transformative power of knowledge and education.  These values, in addition to her writing and editing skills, infuse what she gladly brings to join with her colleagues at the Akili Dada table. You can contact Jill email at: jjarvis@akilidada.org

Maggie Kamau-Biruri; Board Member (Nairobi, Kenya) 

Maggie is the founding Regional Director of ICRI-Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya. Maggie oversees all the ICRI-Africa projects including the Grassroots Advocacy Project, Early Childhood Education and Donor Recruitment and Advising Project. Maggie works closely with grassroots organizations in Kenya, providing training, mentoring and technical assistance. A strong proponent of grassroots approach to development, Maggie has written and spoken extensively about the role of grassroots organizations. Maggie has consulted and advised multiple international organizations and donors interested in funding and working with programs in Africa. Maggie has made numerous presentations on Africa issues, most recently at the Minneapolis Community Foundation and Council of Foundation, Silicon Valley to Africa, United States International University (USIU), Global Philanthropy Forum on the Next Generation Panel, and World Affairs Council on Appropriate International Development Series and has participated in several taskforce groups and round-table discussions.   Prior to returning to Africa as Director of ICRI-Africa, Maggie served as the International Child Resource Institute Communications Director in Berkeley CA. and had previously worked with the Salvation Army in San Francisco as the Public Relations Assistant. Ms. Kamau sits on the Board of Project Baobab, an organization that provides opportunities for marginalized youth in Kenya through vocational and life-skills training. She also advises the Clarence Foundation, a US based foundation that promotes international grant making and engaged philanthropy. Ms. Kamau also serves on the advisory board of Women of Africa. Maggie holds a Masters in Public Administration (MPA), a certificate in Nonprofit Management and B.A in Education. You can reach her at maggie@icriafrica.org

Advisory Council

Dr. Laila Macharia; Advisor (Nairobi, Kenya)

Laila Macharia has diverse experience spanning business, law and institutional reform. She has various real estate interests as a principal at Scion Real, a real estate investment firm based in Nairobi, Kenya (www.scionreal.com). While practicing law, she structured and monitored complex corporate transactions at the New York office of Clifford Chance, a leading global law firm, and at Kaplan & Stratton in Nairobi.  In institutional reform, she has managed projects in the areas of investment climate, private sector development, infrastructure and governance. In her most recent assignment at USAID-East Africa, she successfully designed and implemented a $US 2 million anti-corruption initiative to restructure and regulate the freight forwarding industry along the Northern Corridor (the road-rail route from the port of Mombasa through Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda to the Democratic Republic of Congo). Laila is active in the community as the Founding Vice Chairman of the Kenya Private Developers Association (www.kpda.or.ke), the Founder-Chairman of the Lollipop Project, a community-based road safety program for children, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Friends of the Nairobi Arboretum (FONA).   A lawyer, Laila also holds a B.A. in Planning and Public Policy. She is admitted to practice law in New York and Maryland (USA) and in Kenya. She holds a doctorate from Stanford Law School.  Laila can be reached at: laila@scionreal.com

 Dr. Marisella Ouma; Advisor  (Nairobi, Kenya)

Currently the Executive Director of the Kenya Copyright Board has over ten years of well-rounded experience in law specializing in Intellectual Property Law. She has widely consulted in Africa and has skills in drafting papers, project proposals, report writing and drafting legal documents with a special interest in Intellectual Property.  She has played a pivotal role in advising the Attorney General and other Government Departments Intellectual Property matters in Kenya and within Africa. She has also actively participated in the formulation and drafting of the intellectual property policy in Kenya as well as the law on counterfeiting and piracy. She is also a Senior Research Fellow with Innovative Lawyering and Copyright Africa and has taught Intellectual Property Law at the University of Nairobi as a visiting lecturer. She was also a regular contributor to the European Intellectual Property Bulletin. She completed her doctoral thesis at the Queen Mary University of London in May 2008. She has a Masters in Intellectual Property Law from Stockholm University and an LLB from the University of Nairobi.  Dr. Ouma has published several articles and written papers on copyright, enforcement and administration of intellectual property. Her other interests include, Biotechnology, Traditional Knowledge and Entertainment Law.  In addition to the above, she is a founder member of the Big Sisters mentorship programme at the Mukuru Centre in Nairobi. 

William Becker; Advisor (San Fransisco, California)

Willy Becker is Manager of Recycling & Environmental AmeriCorps Programs at Conservation Corps North Bay.  Previously, he served over 100 nonprofit, advocacy, and LLC organization as Manager for Environment & Health Programs at the Tides Foundation, a fiscal sponsor for new and emerging nonprofit organizations across the U.S. Previous to Tides, Willy has served as a museum curator, an archaeologist in eastern Turkey, an America Reads tutor, and coordinator for the repatriation of American Indian grave artifacts. In eastern Turkey, he focused on the impact of ancient climate change on Bronze Age city states. He is currently on the Board of Real Reason, a 501(c)(3) that uses cognitive linguistics to analyze and formulate political ideas.  Willy holds an MA in anthropology from an Francisco State University and BA in anthropology from Whitman College.  You can reach him at willy@akilidada.org

ebet Chemng'orem Ahluwalia; Advisor (Nairobi, Kenya)

Jebet is the founder and Managing Director at GreyOwl Limited – an indigenous fast growing brand design agency with an aim to deliver growth and value to businesses in Africa and around the globe. After graduating from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design, she earned her first professional position as creative director for Watch Magazine in Britain. She returned to Kenya and joined Ayton Young & Rubicam (A global agency) from Art Director to Acting Creative Director for the Silver Bullet, a division of the Group. In her work, Jebet slowly turned to Integrated branding as an approach to solving business problems. She left AY&R end 2003 to start GreyOwl and in 5 years, has re-engineered businesses to success using brand management as an approach. GreyOwl's portfolio includes a diverse range of businesses by sector, varying from the start-up, government to blue-chip firms. Jebet is also Chief Editor and Publisher of "The Exchange" Magazine, a stock markets publication (The Exchange is the official East African Securities magazine owned by the East African Stock Markets; NSE - Kenya, USE - Uganda, Rwanda's CMA - Rwanda and DSE - Tanzania) with a slant for the economies & dynamics of the region and is circulated within Africa. The company intends to be one of the most influential companies globally by identifying real growth areas and taking full advantage of them in consideration of a sustainable future - financially, environmentally & socially. Jebet also serves as an advisor on the boards of Kulwant Kenya - an online marketing firm and Domaine Kenya - a global importer of wines and spirits and is an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Panelist. Jebet can be reached on jebetc@akilidada.org

 Dr. Marie-Ange Eyoum is a product marketing engineer at Intel Corporation.  In this role, she is in charge of Atom CPU-for-Netbooks activities ranging from engineering interface, sustaining current netbook roadmap offerings, managing samples schedule / roll-out, positioning, field team and OEMs communications, ecosystem training and launch. Prior to her current position, Dr. Eyoum was the technical assistant to Intel Chairman Chief of Staff in the World Ahead Program that aims to bring uncompromised technologies to emerging markets, including Africa.  Outside of work, Dr. Eyoum is actively involved in the community to promote education, mentorship and technology within various non-profits organizations. She is the Outreach Coordinator of WIN (Women at Intel Network) and worked closely with Techbridge and Girls for Change in different outreach events, mentorship, training and coaching activities to encourage minorities and women to excel in science and engineering related fields.With REP (Repurposing Business for Impact) organization, Dr. Eyoum has been providing training and consultancy services to start-up companies in developing nations to help repurpose their business to address major societal issues such as poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, social justice. With TAN (The African Network), an organization that endeavors to cultivate an ecosystem which empowers African entrepreneurs and showcases Africa's potential as a major emerging market, Dr. Eyoum is the Chair of TanCon09 (TAN-annual conference).  Dr. Eyoum holds a Bachelor in Mathematics and a Master & PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of California-Berkeley with research expertise on the integration of MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) with CMOS electronics. She is fluent in both English and French, and enjoys Bible-study, cooking, outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, running marathons or swimming, travelling on mission trips, giving back to the community and hanging-out with friends and family.

Hazel Gachoka; Advisor (San Fransisco, California)

Hazel Gachoka is currently the Services Marketing Manager at Cisco Systems responsible for building service strategy, definition, development, implementation, management and metrics for services across the network lifecycle for new advanced services at Cisco.  Ms Gachoka is also the TAN Membership Director and along with her business partners have recently launched a renewable energy company in Africa called PRCK Energy Ltd.

Prior to joining Cisco, Ms Gachoka worked as a Network Engineer at MCI Worldcom and, as a Software Developer/Programmer at Liz Claiborne. She possesses a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Jersey City University and a Master of Science in Telecommunication Management from Steven's Institute of Technology. Ms. Gachoka has received the highest Cisco certification and was responsible for all the IT aspects of the Oprah Winfrey Girls Leadership Academy in South Africa.  She also worked on the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) E-schools project.