Dr Björn Haßler
EdTech Hub
Björn is a founding director of EdTech Hub, the director of Open Development & Education and a visiting researcher at the University of Johannesburg (Faculty of Education). He is an advocate for international cooperation and development, Global Public Goods, open development practices, Open Access and Open Education and their role in global equity. He specialises in sustainable and scalable approaches for programme implementation to improve educational outcomes — across primary, secondary and higher education.
MS Esme Kadzamira
CERT, University of Malawi
Esme currently works as a Research Fellow at the Centre of Education Research and Training (CERT), University of Malawi. She has extensive experience in education policy analysis, monitoring and evaluation of education programmes. Her main research interests include; determinants of educational and learning outcomes, efficiency of primary and secondary education, school effectiveness, equity, gender and inclusiveness.
LATÉ LAWSON
Education Sub-Saharan Africa
Laté is an economist and data analyst with an extensive policy-driven research experience. He specialised in human development, sustainability as well as geospatial and non-parametric analysis. His research interests involve both theoretical and empirical modelling. Passionate about Education, School-to-Work Transition and Job-Skill mismatch, Laté is currently research manager at ESSA.
Renaldah Mjomba
Zizi Afrique
Renaldah Mjomba is the TVET Programme Manager at Zizi Afrique Foundation. She has over 20 years development experience across Africa in matters of Education, Youth and Inclusion. Her rich experience in Education led to her appointment to the Technical Committee that designed the Policy for Learners and Trainees with Disability 2016-2018. She has an MA in Armed Conflict and Peace Studies, a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism and Communication and a Bachelor’s Degree in Education.
Dr John Mugo
Zizi Afrique
John Mugo is the Executive Director of Zizi Afrique Foundation. He works on EdTech applications for the holistic development of children and youth, to equip them with competences for learning, working and living. Based in Nairobi, John works on generating large-scale evidence on values and life skills, and linking evidence to wider system change in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Most recently, John is collaborating with various players to catalyze an evidence ecosystem in the TVET sub-sector, nurturing a culture of data and evidence generation and use for lasting change.
Dr Taskeen Adam
EdTech Hub
Taskeen is a researcher at EdTech Hub and an Associate Manager with Open Development & Education. She completed her PhD on ‘Addressing Injustices through MOOCs: A study among peri-urban, marginalised South African youth’ at the University of Cambridge. Her research highlighted that historical injustices, cultural imposition, and economic dependence continue to play a pivotal role in education. She contributes technical expertise to topics such as teacher professional development, structured pedagogy, blended learning, virtual learning environments and digital platforms for education.
Rigobert Pambe
eBASE Africa
Rigobert Pambe is a technical and vocational education teacher with keen interest in research, especially evidence generation, synthesis, implementation and dissemination. An advocate for data driven decision-making, he believes in a future where African leaders make decisions based on evidence produced by researchers who understand our environmental settings. He is a social entrepreneur with experience in working with youths in low- and middle-income countries and providing advisory services to decision makers and school boards.
LUCY HEADY
Education Sub-Saharan Africa
Prior to becoming ESSA’s CEO in 2020, Lucy was the Knowledge and Research Director for ESSA from 2019. Lucy brings nearly fifteen years of experience in generating and using evidence to improve education, both in the UK and internationally. Most recently she has worked at Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, as the Impact Director and at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation leading on assessment of evidence and managing evaluations for the education portfolio.
Teg-Wende Idriss TINTO
Open Burkina
A software engineer by training, Mr. TINTO has a decade of experience in promoting open data. He is currently the Executive Director of Open Burkina, after having been the Technical Director of the National Open Data Project in Burkina Faso, where he coordinated the development of the Nendo education data access platform.