Njideka Harry

Njideka Harry
Mitarbeiter von Ashoka

Njideka Harry

Leadership Group Member, Strategic Entrepreneurship Relationships

Njideka Françoise Harry is working with leading entrepreneurs who have made a big, positive impact in their industry and who want to make an equally transformative impact on society. An experienced entrepreneur-for-good and philanthropy advisor, Njideka is a Leadership Group Member and Vice President, Strategic Entrepreneurship Relationships, where she oversees "Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur," an exclusive network of high-impact entrepreneurs who partner with Ashoka's most powerful social entrepreneurs to change the way people harness their social, political, financial and intellectual capital to create lasting systemic change.

A serial social entrepreneur and an Ashoka Fellow, Njideka started her first social business, a neighborhood bakery, at the age of 12.  She experienced first-hand how such enterprises sit at the inflection point of market and social norms – as a transactional business requiring an understanding of non-market values that regulated operational behavior.  Most Ashoka Fellows have their first changemaking experience in their early teens.  Those who signaled that they started something noteworthy in their teens are four times more likely to be entrepreneurs.
 
At 25, Njideka founded Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF), an education technology citizen sector organization. YTF leverages appropriate technology for education and entrepreneurship, replacing economic disparity with economic opportunity. Since founding YTF, Njideka has built several award-winning initiatives that leverage technology for good, while bridging digital and gender inequities.
 
A Fellow at the World Economic Forum, Njideka serves on the Civil Society and Future of Work committee. She has served on the Kellogg Advisory Council and is currently in the Pete Henderson Society of Northwestern University. She is an advisory board member of the Alliance for Affordable Internet, an expert contributor for the prosperity index at the Legatum Institute in the UK and is on the Global Advisory Council of TWIN Tech. Prior to working in social impact and philanthropy, Njideka began her corporate career at GE Capital and Microsoft traveling and working out of offices in Europe, Africa, and North America.

Njideka earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management.  She completed post-graduate studies at Stanford University, where she was a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow.