People
Winnie Auma, Chief Operating Officer, Village Enterprise
RisingRoad Governing Board Co-Chair
Dr. Kingsley Arkorful, Executive Director and Co-Founder, Bureau For Community Action and Development (BUCAD)
RisingRoad Governing Board Treasurer
Meshack Mbinda, Senior Director of Technology Solutions, Village Enterprise
RisingRoad Governing Board Clerk
Winnie Auma is a champion for economic inclusion and poverty alleviation in rural populations. Having grown out of extreme poverty herself, Winnie knows first-hand what it means to implement sustainable development programs. She thrives on providing opportunities and resources for those who need them most. Since joining Village Enterprise as a volunteer business mentor in 2010, Winnie has served as a Field Coordinator, Assistant Country Director, Country Director, Vice President of Programs, Chief Program Officer and currently holds the role of Chief Operating Officer. Winnie has spoken at over 40 companies and organizations, including Facebook, Google, Intuit, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. She was also a panelist at the Skoll World Forum. Winnie previously worked as a high school teacher and administrator. She holds a BA in Education from Makerere University, a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Management, and was a 2019 Harvard Kennedy School Emerging Leader in Executive Education.
Dr. Kingsley Arkorful brings vast experience working in education and integrated social development in Ghana. He has worked and consulted for a number of NGOs and government departments in Ghana. Dr. Arkorful is a national of Ghana with extensive experience as a Social/ Community Development Specialist, Senior Education Program Manager, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Management Trainer and Facilitator. He has management experience in both formal and non-formal social development sectors. He also has extensive experience in socio economic research, participatory research skills, participatory monitoring and evaluation, participatory project planning and management, decentralized governance, community mobilization/development work, management training/capacity building, adult training, gender equity issues, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. He provides training in change management, organization development, project planning and management, people management, integrated community/social development and gender and development. He has worked and traveled in most regions of Africa and has an in-depth appreciation and working knowledge of development work in Africa. He has worked as a resource person for a number of NGOs internationally related to Education and Social Development. Dr. Arkorful has also developed and evaluated sectoral and national programming for a range of NGOs and international actors.
Meshack Mbinda is a champion for technology solutions for social impact. Over the past 12 years, Meshack has worked directly with disadvantaged populations, service providers, and partners to influence the adoption of technology towards achieving promotion and awareness of, and access to, essential services including health care, financial inclusion, empowerment of youth and women. During this time, he has moved through the ranks from technical assistant roles to senior management, all while keeping pace with developing technologies and designing solutions that work directly at the community level to catalyze improvement of services and well-being. Meshack has worked actively with partners, governments, and other stakeholders to develop and deploy innovations that create an impact in the management of service delivery as well as in revenue generation. One of his career highlights was his work on the Mobile Jamii Afya Link (M-Jali). This application revolutionized the management of community health information across areas such as health demographics, disease surveillance, control of non-communicable diseases, and attainment of health insurance coverage in Kenya.
Scott Isbrandt, Founder, RisingRoad
RisingRoad Governing Board Co-Chair
Scott Isbrandt is a tech entrepreneur and advocate for innovation with technology to promote education, entrepreneurship and economic empowerment with over 25 years of experience in edtech and international development. Scott is also the founder of RisingRoad, a platform that empowers innovators that strengthen education systems and catalyze small business development. Over the past two decades, Scott has worked extensively with local experts and local organizations in emerging economies to enhance digital ecosystems, designing and developing tech solutions to bring affordable educational multimedia to developing communities across rural Africa, focusing on those with limited access. Scott previously led Project ABC (Alphabétisation de Base par Cellulaire) in Niger, delivering basic education services to rural learners via mobile phones and improving the livelihoods of agricultural producers by creating systems to access agricultural market data. Scott also created an edtech learning platform called Stepping Stone, a content creation tool and delivery system for low-cost mobile phones, delivering learning and training content to hundreds of thousands across Africa. Scott also designed, prototyped, and produced interactive multimedia, building the initial architecture for the Pearson Education Interactive Textbook digital platform in partnership with Macromedia and the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media.
Adiaratou Touré, Director and Co-Founder, Association pour l'innovation et le développement de l'éducation (AIDE)
RisingRoad Advisory Board Member
Adiaratou Touré is an experienced pedagogy specialist for education and edtech initiatives. Adiaratou has more than 13 years of experience in project management, technical support for basic education and youth workforce development programs. Her experience includes being a Project Manager for EKOLIRE in Senegal, managing different stages of project development, ensuring private and public partnership relations at the local, national and international levels (with private sector companies, training organizations, and the Ministry of Education). Adiaratou has also worked as a Project Coordinator with Education Development Center under the PACEN and PAJE projects in Mali supporting distance education and edtech activities. She has served as a consultant for projects that focused on improving the quality of education, coordinating the development of more than 500 interactive radio programs for children and young entrepreneurs in Mali and Madagascar as well as modules for capacity building of different education stakeholders in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She is responsible for pedagogy design and development for edtech learning modules as well as has led in the production of educational content creation, including design, development and distribution.
Cheick Diallo, Lead Producer, RisingRoad
RisingRoad Advisory Board Member
Cheick Abdoulaye Diallo is a media production specialist and graphic designer with over 17 years of expertise in developing innovative digital solutions. Diallo Cheick founded IBUSOF in Mali in 2008, focusing on developing communication strategies, events, multimedia production, computer graphics, and print product design. Cheick Diallo previously worked as a communications and reporting consultant for several international and local organizations. During his long period of work in Mali and Burkina Faso, he has consulted for: the International Committee for Emergency Relief and Development (CIAUD) in Canada, DCAF (Geneva Delegation for Good Governance), the Center for the Governance of the Security Sector of People and States, the National Center for Information, Education and Communication for Health (CNIECS), the World Health Organization, UNICEF, International Medical Corps (IMC) funding UNFPA, Humanity and Inclusion as well as the Red Cross in Mali, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Canada, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Cheick Diallo is responsible for the digitization of all learning and training content, as well as the production of all multimedia elements for RisingRoad's communication campaigns.
Matt French, Executive Director, Komo Learning Centres
RisingRoad Advisory Board Member
Matthew French is the Executive Director of Komo Learning Centres in Uganda. He was born and raised in the Washington, DC area, but his enthusiasm for exploring other cultures and commitment to serving those in need have taken him all over the globe. Matthew is passionate about empowering young people to take control of their own lives and at Komo he strives to increase meaningful youth participation in the Ugandan school system. He started working with young people in 1999, caring for adolescents who had been removed from their homes due to abuse and neglect. He continued his work on youth issues, leading development of the report - Youth Engagement in Development: Effective Approaches and Action-Oriented Recommendations for the Field commissioned by USAID’s Office of Education, working with The MasterCard Foundation and USAID to establish the Mobiles for Youth Workforce Development Working Group, and helping CARE International in Burundi develop their youth strategy. Matthew also spent several years working on HIV-related issues, implementing a counseling and testing initiative in North India while serving as a William J. Clinton Fellow and providing technical assistance to SAMHSA HIV/AIDS grantees while working with JBS International. Matthew holds a BA in psychology from UC San Diego and an MPH from the University of Washington.
Ousseini Sountalma is the Director of Assistance au Développement Communautaire (ADC) and Bee Consulting in Niger. Ousseini is an economist, engineer as well as a specialist in project management and evaluation. He worked at Catholic Relief Services from 2001 to 2021 where he held several senior positions including Deputy Head of Programs at CRS Niger, Acting Head of Programs of CRS Guinea in 2019, Deputy Chief of Party and Program Coordinator of the Household Food Security Support Program Tanadin Abinci Iyali, Head of the Agriculture Department and Coordinator of the Food and Nutrition Security Program PROSAN and Agro-Enterprise Manager and Marketing Specialist for the Sesame, Onion and Okra Sector Value Chain Project. Ousseini has led key several studies relating to inclusive rural finance and analysis of the socio-economic status of members of internal savings and lending community groups. He has also facilitated training courses relating to microfinance, participatory evaluation as well as awareness-raising campaigns for agro-enterprise related activities. Ousseini was also previously a part-time instructor at the University of Maradi in Niger (from 2013 to 2014), teaching a course on food and nutritional security at the Department of Plant Production Sciences and Techniques at the Faculty of Agronomy and Food Sciences with the University of Maradi.
Ousseini Sountalma, Director, Assistance au Développement Communautaire (ADC) and Bee Consulting
RisingRoad Advisory Board Member
Jesus Melendez Vicente, Technical Program Manager, Education for Humanity Initiative at Arizona State University
RisingRoad Advisory Board Member
Jesus Melendez Vicente is a seasoned humanitarian and global development professional with 24 years of experience at the intersection of information and communication technologies and socio-economic development. With a background in telecom solutions delivery, program management, and business consulting, he has worked in over 20 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, partnering with private sector companies, governments, multilateral organizations, and NGOs. Currently, Jesus leads technical programs for Arizona State University's Education for Humanity initiative, where he drives the implementation of digital learning solutions to support learning, entrepreneurship and vocational training needs of refugee populations and host communities. His work focuses on enabling local partners to deliver impactful education and workforce development through both online and offline platforms. Previously, Jesus worked in international NGOs such as Mercy Corps and IREX, and consulted for WFP, IFC, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative among others, advising on digital and data for development trends, partnerships and solutions, for complex and volatile environments. He is passionate about systems innovation, collective intelligence, and creating sustainable, scalable impact through local capacity-building. Jesus holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and is fluent in English and Spanish. He resides in the Finger Lakes region of New York and often visits his native Madrid, Spain.
