Ory Okolloh (or Ory Okolloh Mwangi) is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger. She is Director of Investments at Omidyar Network. [1] [2] [3] She was formerly the Policy Manager for Africa with Google. [4] In 2007, Okolloh co-created Ushahidi . [5]
Ory Okolloh (or Ory Okolloh Mwangi) is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger. She is Director of Investments at Omidyar Network. [1] [2] [3] She was formerly the Policy Manager for Africa with Google. [4] In 2007, Okolloh co-created Ushahidi . [5]
She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2005. [5] [6]
In 2006 she co-founded the parliamentary watchdog site Mzalendo (Swahili: "Patriot"). [7] The site sought to increase government accountability by systematically recording bills, speeches, MPs, standing orders, etc. [7] [8]
When Kenya was engulfed in violence following a disputed presidential election in 2007, Okolloh co-created Ushahidi (Swahili: "Witness"), a website and tool that collected and recorded eyewitness reports of violence using text messages and Google Maps. [5] The technology has since been adapted for expanded purposes (including monitoring elections and tracking pharmaceutical availability) and used in a number of other countries.
Okolloh has a personal blog, Kenyan Pundit, which was featured on Global Voices Online. [9]
She has worked as a legal consultant for NGOs and has worked at Covington and Burling, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and the World Bank. [10] [6]
Okolloh was appointed to the Board of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, the body that acts as a guardian of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles in May 2015. [11]
Okolloh has also served as an independent director at Safaricom since February 2023. [12]
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Data from Wikidata
Lamu County is a county in Kenya located along the North Coast of the country and is one of the six Coastal Counties in Kenya. Its capital is the town of Lamu. It borders Tana River County to the southwest, Garissa County to the north, Somalia to the northeast, and the Indian Ocean to the South.
Safaricom PLC is a listed Kenyan mobile network operator headquartered at Safaricom House in Nairobi, Kenya. It is the largest telecommunications provider in Kenya, and one of the most profitable companies in the East and Central Africa region. The company offers mobile telephony, mobile money transfer, consumer electronics, ecommerce, cloud computing, data, music streaming, and fibre optic services. It is most renowned as the home of M-PESA, a mobile banking SMS-based service.
Swahili culture is the culture of the Swahili people inhabiting the Swahili coast. This littoral area encompasses Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique, as well as the adjacent islands of Zanzibar and Comoros along with some parts of Malawi and the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo. Swahili people speak Swahili as their native language, which belongs to the Bantu language family. Graham Connah described Swahili culture as at least partially urban, mercantile, and literate.
Mobitelea Ventures is the name of a company that formerly owned 12.5% of Vodafone Kenya Ltd, a 40% shareholder of Safaricom, a leading mobile network operator in Kenya.
Mass media in Kenya includes more than 91 FM stations, more than 64 free to view TV stations, and an unconfirmed number of print newspapers and magazines. Publications mainly use English as their primary language of communication, with some media houses employing Swahili. Vernacular or community-based languages are commonly used in broadcast media; mostly radio.
Ushahidi is an open source software application which utilises user-generated reports to collate and map data. It uses the concept of crowdsourcing serving as an initial model for what has been coined as "activist mapping" – the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geographic information. Ushahidi allows local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the Internet, creating an archive of events with geographic and time-date information.
M-PESA is a mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service, launched in 2007 by Vodafone and Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in Kenya. It has since expanded to Tanzania, Mozambique, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Afghanistan, South Africa and Ethiopia. The rollouts in India, Romania, and Albania were terminated amid low market uptake. M-PESA allows users to deposit, withdraw, transfer money, pay for goods and services, access credit and savings, all with a mobile device.
Jillian C. York is an American free-expression activist and author. She serves as Director of International Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and a founding member of Deep Lab. She is the author of Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism and Morocco - Culture Smart!: the essential guide to customs & culture.
The Baringo Half Marathon is an annual road running competition for men and women over the half marathon distance which takes place every December in Baringo, Kenya. The programme previously had a 15 kilometres race for women, but this was extended to a half marathon in 2011.
Juliana Rotich is a Kenyan information technology professional, who has developed web tools for crowdsourcing crisis information and coverage of topics related to the environment. She is the co-founder of iHub, a collective tech space in Nairobi, Kenya, and of Ushahidi, open-source software for collecting and mapping information. She is a TED Senior Fellow.
Jonathan D. Gosier is a software developer, investor, and philanthropist. He was named as one of Ten African Tech Voices to Follow on Twitter by CNN and one of the 25 most influential African-Americans in Technology by Business Insider. He was awarded a TED Fellowship in 2009 and later named a TED Senior Fellow. Jon is Knight News Challenge award winner for Abayima which makes crisis communications technology for disasters. In 2013 Gosier was nominated as one of three Innovators of the Year by Black Enterprise Magazine for his work with data startup MetaLayer.
Gina Din-Kariuki is a Kenyan businesswoman specializing in strategic communication and public relations in Kenya. She is best known as the founder and executive chair of Gina Din Corporate Communications, which she started after leaving her job as a Communications manager at Barclays Bank of Kenya in 1997.
Afua Osei is an entrepreneur, investor and public speaker who co-founded She Leads Africa, a media company for millennial African women.
Sylvia Wairimu Mulinge, is a Kenyan businesswoman and corporate executive. Since 1 October 2022, she has served as the chief executive officer of MTN Uganda, replacing Wim Vanhelleputte, who was promoted to regional executive responsible for operations in Congo-Brazzaville, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry and Liberia.
Osborne Macharia is a self-taught Kenyan commercial photographer and digital artist whose work focuses on themes of Afrofuturism in culture, identity, and fictional narratives. He has been called "a master at creating alternate black universes."
Rose Nyaboke Ogega, is a Kenyan accountant, businesswoman and corporate executive, who serves as the chief executive officer of Bloom Consultancy Limited, a Nairobi-based organization that develops leadership skills through executive mentoring and coaching. She concurrently serves as a board member of several large public and private companies, including Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in Kenya.
Peter Ndegwa is a Kenyan businessman, accountant and corporate executive, who is the chief executive officer at Safaricom, the largest telecommunications company in the countries of the East African Community, with approximately 35.6 million subscribers in December 2020.
The Uweza Foundation is a non-profit organization which works to promote human development in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. It was founded in 2008 and is registered in the United States as a 501(c)3 organization. It is led by actress Rooney Mara.
Vivian Onano is an African activist and social entrepreneur from Kenya who advocates for girls' education and end of child marriage in Africa. She is the founder and director of the Leading Light Initiative, an organization aimed at alleviating poverty by providing opportunities tailored to youth, women, and disabled individuals.
Lorna Rutto is a Kenyan ecopreneur, and founder of Ecopost, a social enterprise that manufactures fencing posts and other products from recycled plastic waste in offering sustainable jobs to people in marginalized communities and solutions to Kenya's plastic waste challenge.