Global Fellows

Alain Michel Doricyusa Gabiro

Alain holds a Masters in Development Practice from Regis University. He also holds a B.Sc. in Environmental Health and Epidemiology from Umutara Polytechnic, Rwanda. Prior to the fellowship, Alain works at the National Fund for Environment, FONERWA (Rwanda Green Fund) as a climate finance specialist. He will be working on the Rwandan Green Bond project with Nathalie Mutalikanwa (see below) and our colleagues in Kigali in conjunction with the Rwandan Development Board and Rwandan Capital Market Authority on this important project.

Esther Eshiet

Esther completed an undergraduate degree at the University of Calabar in Nigeria and her graduate degree in International Development at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and interned at Gigawatt Global working on the implementation of their utility- scale solar field in Burundi. She also worked on developing baseline and impact assessment measurement tools for the organization.  Esther is currently working to coordinate all of the Global Fellows projects, especially focusing on impact assessment metrics for each project implementation plan.

Fatima Jimanate Umar

Fatima holds a Masters in Sustainable Development Practice from University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a B.A in economics from Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria. She also has a Certificate of Global Diplomacy (SOAS) from University of London. She is currently working at the UNDP during her Fellowship where she will be developing a public private partnership in conjunction with the Central Bank of Nigeria and Kaduna State Government for a RBOT (rehabilitate-build-operate-transfer) project financing for field side grain and cold storage facilities to reduce post-harvest loss and improve food security.

Ife-Oluwa Olawale Caleb

Ife holds a B.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Ibadan and is currently finishing his degree in Sustainable Development Practice (M.Sc.) with focus on climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience practices by smallholder farmers. He is working  on the financial model to deploy greenhouse digital technologies (driers, processing, solar and precision irrigation) for enhanced productivity in leafy green vegetable production in Nigeria.

Nathalie Mutalikanwa

Nathalie holds an undergraduate degree in applied sciences and continued study with a specialization in Environmental Science from Concordia University in Canada. Nathalie continues working as a Climate Finance Specialist at FONERWA (National Fund for Environment-Rwanda Green Fund). In the fellowship she will continue to work there to design the country’s first green bond.

Nonsikelelo L. Nkomo

Nonsikelelo holds a M.Sc. Economics from Lancaster University, England. She also holds a B.Sc. in Economics from Swansea University, England. She is currently working at Solidaridad Network as a project officer in climate innovation. She will be working on a financial model supported by the government of Zimbabwe to deploy renewable energy for water and storage for crop production in community gardens for both local consumption and export in the Beitbridge East District.

Refilwe Belebesi

Refilwe has a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Finance from the University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa. She also holds a PMD (Programme in Management Development) from University of Pretoria and a B.Com. degree in accounting from University of the Witwatersrand. Refilwe will be working on an agricultural value chain impact fund for her country, blending concessional and market-rate investors in conjunction with Solidaridad Network and Grip Capital in Johannesburg.

Thaddeus Ochieng

Thaddeus holds a B.Sc. degree in Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering from Jomo Kenyatta University. He will be working on operationalizing his blended finance model for cold storage and packaging facility at the ILabAfrica program at Swarthmore University in Kenya.

Laura Shalmaev

Recently finished working at the Israel Embassy in Washington, as a Legislative Analyst, Holds a B.A, in Economics and International Relationship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Will work on Implementation of the Evergreen Impact Accelerator model  that emerged from our recent Financial Innovations Lab  with the Syngenta Foundation and Start-Up Nation Central in India and East Africa.

Matan Dahan

Matan completed graduate training in Environmental Engineering at Munich Technical University and returned to Israel for his MBA at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He’ll be working on implementing thermo-chemical treatment technology to recycle agricultural waste for food production in Rwanda.

Christella Uwamahoro

From Kigali, Rwanda is an experienced Project Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the logistics and supply chain industry. She is currently working as Project Coordinator for the Rwandan Information-Communications-Technology Chamber for Commerce’s national program in capacity building directing programs on data science, data innovation and food security. Her training includes program and project management experience with a BA degree of Information Science focused in Specializing in Information Technology and Logistics from Mount Kenya University and an MSc. in Project Management, from the University of Kigali.

David Kariuki

From Nairobi, Kenya. Holds a BA degree in Accounting and an M.A in Project Planning and Management, both from Maseno University, Kisumu, Kenya. Worked as a Consultant for Municipal Finance and Local Economic Development at the United Nations Human settlement program (UN-Habitat HQs)  Supporting Revenue Enhancement for Sub-national governments. Before that he volunteered at the United Nations as Economist  in the Region office for Africa.  He seeks to be a lead expert at in sustainable economic development programs at a regional level.

Ana Isabel Quirola Garces

From Quito, Ecuador where she completed her BA degree in Food Engineering at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito and recently completed her MBA degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  She is interested in food engineering, agriculture and development finance.   Her work has focused upon research management and entrepreneurship and is interested is sustainable food production.

Temitayo Bamidele

From Nigeria. He has focused his recent work as Programme Monitoring and Evaluation Intern at USAID/Winrock International Farmer-to-Farmer AET Program. Through the application of monitoring and evaluation tools such as baseline and impact surveys to evaluate the effect of the program on its partner and host organizations.  He’s interested in focusing on agriculture and water, social finance and global health. He has a B.Sc in International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Master’s of Development Practice, University of Ibadan.

Elsie Kangai Mathiu

From Kenya. She has a passion for agribusiness development, youth empowerment and partnership building. She is an Agricultural Economist with MSc. Agricultural and Applied Economics (Rural Development option) and BSc. Agricultural Economics. She has twelve (12) years of experience in development work, both as a practitioner and a consultant in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E). She has managed development projects serving smallholder crops and livestock farmers with successful business cases in Kenya. Thus, she has built expertise in program management, R&D, coordination, preparation of training manuals, resource mobilization and networking. She has served in different capacities as a consultant in development programs in the East African Region including Usomi Ltd/ABS, Agri-Experience, AGRA, NRI (UK), IFPRI, UNECA, FAO, Techno Serve Kenya, ASDSP, ASARECA and Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) among others. She has also co-authored different reports, presentations, policy briefs and publications covering agricultural policy, youth and agriculture, livestock policy issues, Agribusiness public-private partnerships, technology uptake pathways, technology inventory, private sector investments in agricultural R&D and high value crops.

Richard Ibrahim

From Nairobi, Kenya. Holds a BA degree of Arts in Real Estate / Land Economics from the University of Nairobi and a Post-graduate in Project Management from Kenya Institute of Management. Currently, he works at  UN-Habitat formulating policy and financial models to guide affordable and sustainable housing across the world. Passionate about International Affairs and finance, particularly scalable ideas that can be applied to improve lives in the developing world.  His long-term goal is to be an agent of change either through policy development or implementation of market-based solutions to challenges faced by many people in Kenya.

Dan Amias

From Israel. He recently completed a 2 year fellowship through the Overseas Development Institute embedded in the Rwandan Ministry of Finance in the External Finance Division in Kigali. Focusing on mobilizing private sector investment through innovative and blended finance instruments.  He worked on a development impact bond to scale up rural health and design of a Diaspora Bond for Rwanda.   He’s also worked on structuring Rwanda’s first private equity fund.  He has a BA degree in economics from the University of Nottingham and an M.A. degree in International Development from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Claire Kaufman

Placed at Energiya (Gigawatt) Global, working on analyzing business models and investment opportunities for renewable energy deployment in emerging markets.

Her final project: Solar Mini-Grids in Rural Burundi.

Arun Chaitanya Salivendra

Placed at StartUp Nation Central, working on: Accelerating Agritech in Israel and California by creating a SPV to capitalize with a mix of equity investments, long-term subordinated bonds sold to philanthropic investors, and long-term senior bonds sold to pension and insurance funds to enhance the deal flow by the investors in Agritech industry.

His final project: Accelerating AgriTech industry in Israel and USA A project of the California-Israel global innovation partnership.

LeeOr Carasso-Ram‏

Placed at Netafim, Collecting and analyzing data to build a marketing strategy for the African market; working on a research proposal to examine the effects of drip irrigation in commodity crops in order for Netafim to be able to grow its Californian market.

Her final project: The case for drip irrigation.

Eric (Xinyuan) Han

Placed at the Israel Venture Network, helping IVN research and analyze a new funding structural and revenue model for a social venture fund focused on assistive technology for the disabled.

His final project: Research and analyze a new funding structural and revenue model for a social venture fund focused on assistive technology for the disabled.

Jamie Weisman

Placed at the Milken Innovation Center, working on the design and implementation of new financial solutions to achieve sustainable water use in California.

Her final project was a proposal of 6 pilot projects in California using Israeli water technologies. The proposal depicts the who, what, where, why, when, how of each project and includes a financial flow chart.

Israel Munoz Pineda

Placed at Our Crowd, working on Business Intelligence, Key Performance Indicators – General process atomization within the product development team.

His final project was Developing further visibility into past platform performance. Working with the lead data architect on generating and defining KPIs useful for internal distribution.

Madhyama Subramanian

Placed at Netafim,  working on Analysis of US county level data to analyze market expansion opportunities; Research and strategy development for increasing Netafim’s involvement with women smallholder farmers;  Development of case study on Netafim’s initiative to deploy drip irrigation for rice cultivation in South India for publication in the “UN Caring for Climate” publication.

Jia Wu

Placed at the Israel Venture Network, helping IVN research and analyze a new social venture fund focused on assistive technology for the disabled. Interviewing a lot people in social tech accelerators and the Director that the Chief Scientist Office.

Her final project was a Co-author the Yozma case study, spoke and work with many leaders in the social tech industry, proposed a funding structure, market research of assistive tech, connect IVN management with other professionals.