Congratulations to all AWiB WOE 2022
AWiB would like to announce the 2022 Women of Excellence (WOE) nominees. Every year as we celebrate outstanding Ethiopian Women who serve their communities and country
tirelessly, this time around, we bring you 4 magnificent women in our Pinnacle. Their full story will be posted on October Focus and they will be celebrated on October 30, 2022, at a Gala Dinner held in Sheraton Addis. To get closer to these women and catch their fever, we urge you to join us at the AWIB 2022 WOE Gala Dinner.
DR. Teguest Guerema
Dr. Teguest Guerema is a medical doctor who specialized in infectious diseases. She has more than 30 years of experience in public health, leadership, and management working throughout the world for UN agencies. Dr. Teguest served as a regional advisor for Africa and developed the first HIV/AIDS regional strategy for the continent. She also co-led the WHO 3×5 Initiative which made Antiretroviral treatment available to the developing countries. Dr. Teguest was the first African woman who led AMREF Health Africa, an organization which supports community health in more than 35 African countries. She finally came back home to give back to her community and founded LeDeG Midwifery College. LeDeG Midwifery College trains disadvantaged rural girls to become midwives who go back and serve their communities and contribute to the reduction of maternal and infant mortality. Dr. Teguest established this college using her own resources.
Bethlehem Dessie
Betelhem Dessie is a 23 year old programmer and entrepreneur who is passionate about equipping the next generation with the 21st century skillsets such as coding and robotics. She is the CEO of iCog Anyone Can Code (iCog-ACC), a company that teaches youngsters in coding, robotics, Artifical Intelleginece(AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT). iCog-ACC began as a project within iCog Labs and has grown into a company of its own. Betelhem hopes to create a platform in which children throughout Ethiopia can have the same opportunity as she had when she was a kid — and the iCog -ACC is a product of that vision. Her and her team have impacted over 25,000 Ethiopian children and young people, primarily from government schools. The majority of her works are centered on ensuring that individuals outside of Addis get access to this platform. She believes it is vital to demonstrate the caliber of African talent hence she works tirelessly in expanding even further and reaching more countries.
Menna Selamu
Menna Selamu is a formidable leader with an engineering background. Menna is a co-founder of Flipper International School. She served as its main leader to bring the institution where it is today growing in capacity and quality of education of 2,100 students and 465 employees, with 70% female staff. Flipper started out as a computer learning center for young children where students from various schools enrolled. Menna as a co-founder decided to then change the organization from a computer learning center to primary and secondary education. What she found out was the greater need for basic problem solving and logical thinking rather than computer education.
Hence Flipper was born to close the gap. Having an engineering background has helped Menna find her passion in Education. She is the ultimate advocate for strong education that serves societies to tackle contemporary problems. Menna has showed the community that this simple but extremely important concept possible through her businesses and actions.
Amina Mohammed
Amina Mohammed is an activist whose impetus was an astounding figure of a high rate of early marriage and harmful traditional practice in her rural community of Dire Dawa. Most regions do not have a secondary school nearby therefore students go far to continue their education. In a society where the major mantra is a girl should stay home to serve her primary obligation– to be a baby machine, her fate is to get married at a younger age. This tradition was not compatible to Amina’s drive whose mission is to empower women and to do it through education. To realize her dream, Amina raised funds and built a hostel for girls where the high schools were located. The hostel not only provides shelter and food but also follows up with their studies. This hostel became an instrument for girls to demand their rights in society and changed the lives of more than 1000 girls to date.
