I thought about this one a lot and looked at all the links provided to the websites and social innovators. There is one person that stood out for me this year, and whose thinking resonates so well with my own heart on development and innovation in Africa that I cannot imagine her name not coming up.
I cannot remember when I first read about
Mariéme Jamme - I think it may have been a simple 140-character retweet from a mutual friend from her extraordinary Twitter account. She defies any definition or 'box' but describes herself amongst other things as a London-based philanthropist, Entrepreneur, CEO, Champion of Causes, Mother, Africa
Strategist, Enabler, Marketing and Sales Interim Manager and VC.
Marieme is currently the President of SpotOne Global Solutions Group a successful company that helps companies set a foothold in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. I admire her for her visionary style: For instance, she also recently founded iConscience (what a great name), an organization that enables business experts and like-minded individuals to share their expertise and experience in the name of sustainability, development, ethics and morals.
I believe Mariéme to be one of the leading social innovators in the world. She has compassion and insight, and a depth of knowledge on African issues and potential that I can only aspire to in my life time. In my opinion, her greatest contribution to the world is her belief human rights should be lived in the way we do business with and in Africa. We are equal as people that excel when opportunity presents itself. This is the cornerstone of her philosophy in my view. People like Mariéme lives a life of purpose - to cross boundaries in order to create a world of opportunity for all by sheer brilliant innovation. We need more women like her to inspire the world about Africa and its enormous offering from every single nation that calls it home...
I hope we will be able to meet one day and do something great together... and in the mean time, I will shadow her and learn each day.
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