"I really believe in the power of innovation as a way of contributing to a positive and balanced evolution of the world" says Jaime Andrés Peña, Danida Alumni, sustainable development entrepreneur and team coordinator of the Danida Alumni Network Colombia.
Portrait articles
Across every continent former and current Danida fellows drive development and effect change. They make important breakthroughs with innovative and progressive new ideas in a vast spectrum of sectors.
Danida Fellowship Centre is proud of all its alumni. We celebrate it with portrait articles featuring our remarkable former and current students.
If you have suggestions to whom we should interview, please write us at alumni@dfcentre.dk
Olman Segura-Bonilla, Danida alumni and former Cabinet Minister of Labor and Social Security of Costa Rica is a first mover and fierce believer in sustainable development economics. His impressive career and Costa Rica’s path of development are closely interlinked.
By applying a gendered lens and working within the multilateral forest governance framework of REDD+, Hao’s PhD explored the extent to which a local indigenous community in the Central Highlands had access to productive land such as wet rice fields, coffee land and forests.
It is a passion for science and a scientific approach to problem solving that has driven Moses Mukota throughout his academic and professional career. He completed his Danida Scholarship and the course ‘Water Sector Governance - the Danish Model’ in 2018.
Seth Aning started his financial career at Standard Chartered Bank in 2007. Four years later he left Accra to pursue an MBA at Copenhagen Business School - a decision that would not only accelerate Seth's career, but also alter his view of the corporate world and his role within it.
I believe that Africa’s fastest route to social and economic transformation is through entrepreneurship, says Patricia Jumi, Danida Alumni and Executive Director and founding partner of GrowthAfrica. Patricia Jumi holds an MBA from Copenhagen Business School, which she completed in 2007 after receiving a Danida Fellowship for one year.
When Hazem Hafez Ragab received an email that urged him to apply for a Danida Fellowship and a full-time MBA, he thought it was a hoax. But it was real, and the MBA made him realize that leadership starts with self-awareness.
Non-communicable diseases are rapidly spreading in Zanzibar as in the rest of the world. Danida alum Omar Mwalim uses his Danish connections to try to prevent a further escalation.
“We ought to mobilize homemade African science to inform long term, sustainable solutions to African problems”, says the internationally recognized scientist and Danida alumni, Cheikh Mbow. Two years ago, he became Executive Director of the Washington, D.C. based organisation START International.
The time I spent as Danida Fellow was so valuable. My first experience of universal health coverage was in Denmark, Dr Tedros Adhanom, WHO Director-General said in his acceptance speech for the Danida Alumni Prize 2017. The award ceremony was part of Danida Fellowship Centre's 25 years celebrations in Frederiksberg.
The recent war in Northern Uganda was all-encompassing destructive. To heal the wounds and move forward, Psychologist and Danida alumni Henry Oboke has created a small army of Village Helpers. They provide basic problem-solving therapy and help to self-help at household level.
Doing business in Africa is challenging and rewarding, says Robert Leo Maslamoney, Managing Director of Maersk Line Angola. In 2012 he graduated with an international MBA from Copenhagen Business School under Danida Fellowship Centre’s Emerging Leadership Scholarship Programme.
The bi-annual Livia Peace Price 2016 was awarded to William Ongoro for acting bravely and wisely in the painful and violent conflicts of South Sudan.
Rich in taste and with a good sustainable story, TOMS EKSTRA chocolate plates were launched in Denmark in 2010. Meet one of the key experts behind the product: Ghanaian Margaret Owusu, PhD from University of Copenhagen.
Like Denmark, Bhutan is concerned with preserving the environment and the livelihoods of it's people, explains Jigme Dorji, MBA, Aarhus University. He foresees business collaboration between the world’s two happiest nations.
As the Country Director of the Population Council in Nairobi, Harriet Birungi still draws on her experiences from her PhD years at University of Copenhagen.