2024 James and carol hovey
Eisenhower Fellowships Impact Award
Camilo Fonseca Velásquez
Colombia 2019
Macro Sector Director of Creative,
Culturaland Graphic Industries
Bogotá Chamber of Commerce
Mariana Villamizar
Colombia 2014
Director, Public
and Corporate Relations
Grupo Éxito
Peace and prosperity through social entrepreneurship
Co-recipients Mariana Villamizar and Camilo Fonseca Velásquez work to identify, inspire, connect and strengthen social entrepreneurship and peace-building opportunities in Colombia. Camilo serves as the Macro Sector Director of Creative, Cultural and Graphic Industries for the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce. Mariana heads government affairs for Grupo Éxito, a department store/grocery chain with more than 2,600 stores in South America and early supporting partner of RECON. In 2014 Camilo co-founded RECON, an online platform for peace initiatives and social innovation. In strengthening sustainable development and investing in education, through poverty and inequality reduction, environmental protections and peacebuilding, their project has positively touched the lives of more than 500,000 Colombians.
finalists
Investing in clean energy
Gustavo Almedia
Brazil 2019
Chief Operating Officer
Invest Minas
The Sol de Minas initiative, a collaborative effort between the public and private sectors, aims to catalyze investments in renewable energy, particularly solar power, and accelerate the shift towards a low-carbon economy in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s second-most populous state with 21 million residents. Three Eisenhower Fellows, affiliated with Invest Minas, the state’s investment promotion agency, lead this effort Gustavo Almeida, Invest Minas’ current COO, Thiago Toscano (2015), former CEO of Invest Minas and current President of CODEMGE and João Paulo Braga (2022), Invest Minas’ current CEO. To date, 37 new solar or hybrid energy projects have been installed in Minas Gerais, with investments totaling $ 8.4 billion, allowing it to become the first state in Brazil to achieve 7 gigawatts of installed solar energy capacity.
Financial transparency and inclusivity
Thiago Alvarez
Brazil 2014
Co-Founder and CEO
GuiaBolso
Thiago Alvarez returned from fellowship with the vision and strategic approach to launch open banking in Brazil, by sharing of data, products and services between regulated entities. GuiaBolso pioneered this work under Thiago’s leadership, ensuring customers’ protection, enhancing efficiency in credit and payments markets and promoting a more inclusive and competitive business environment. Open Banking, with over 42 million consumers now utilizing the service has influenced and directly inspired the Brazilian Central Bank to launch the Open Banking initiative. GuiaBolso and Thiago hold a significant role in shaping a more inclusive, competitive, and educated financial future for Brazil.
Harnessing global math education
Javier Arroyo
Spain 2018
Co-Founder
Smartick
Over a decade ago, Javier Arroyo co-developed Smartick, the adaptive online math program. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, the program tailors education to the individual learning style of each child. Over the course of ten years, Smartick has reached over 1 million students across 100 countries; delivering high-caliber education to marginalized groups, including indigenous populations, children affected by cancer, orphans, and those with disabilities.
Maternal and child healthcare
Magaly Blas
Peru 2018
Director, Mama River Program
Cayetano Heredia Peruvian University
A physician and professor of public health at Peru’s Cayetano Heredia University, Magaly directs the Mama River Program that trains community health advocates working in remote areas along the Amazon River to advance newborn and maternal care. In the program’s first year, Mama River workers brought community education videos and safe birth delivery kits to 799 women of childbearing age in 13 rural communities. Since completing her fellowship, Magaly created a spin-off to her program and worked with the governments of Peru and Colombia to expand the Mama River maternal and child healthcare initiative across the border to Colombia. This successful expansion, Mamás del Río (Mothers of the River) now operates in 38 additional communities along both sides of the border.
Changing how AI impacts the world
David Bray
USA 2015
Director, GeoTech Center
and Commission
Henry L. Stimson Center
As the Executive Director for the bipartisan Commission on the Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data, Dr. David Bray built bipartisan consensus on several advanced topics, including AI, the future of biology and human health, quantum computing, secure data, trust in the digital economy, resilient supply chains, and more. His work focuses on how data and technology are impacting communities globally. David continues his service to the United States, during times of turbulence and crisis, and receiving numerous distinguished awards for his help in humanitarian and military efforts.
Powering the future with offshore wind
Valerie Cummins
Ireland 2012
Chief Impact Officer
Simply Blue Group
As director of Simply Blue Group, a company dedicated to the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals for oceans and seas, Valerie oversees its growing network of floating offshore wind farms. Currently, two 2.3GW farms are deployed in the North Atlantic around Ireland, with plans to develop more. Over a windfarm’s 25-year life span it is estimated to remove from the atmosphere a volume of carbon dioxide equivalent to the volume removed by 10 million mature trees. Valerie co-chaired Future Earth Coasts, a global community of scientists and intergovernmental agencies driving the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and she is a founding editor of the Coastal Atlas of Ireland, an award-winning celebration of Ireland’s marine spaces.
Poverty alleviation through educational philanthropy
Xiaoliang Ding
China 1999
Former Executive Vice President
Beijing Gengdan Public Welfare Foundation for Education
In 2007, Education Foundation of Dr. Xiaoliang Ding (EFD) was established as an educational charity fund to support impoverished areas of China. Each year, EFD collaborates with local education authorities to identify and support 12 high-achieving high school students facing financial hardships in each of Baise City’s 12 counties. EFD offers financial aid to assist them in completing their secondary education and seeks to inspire them through the process. The fund grows with support from governmental and private sectors, EFD has changed the destiny of 100 high school students in Baise City who were academically outstanding but at risk of dropping out due to family poverty.
Improving the lives of stroke survivors
Francesca Fedeli
Italy 2014
President and Co-Founder
FightTheStroke.org
As an activist for the rights of medical patients and people with disabilities, Francesca is president and co-founder with her husband Roberto of FightTheStroke Foundation, a non-profit that develops innovative adaptations for people with cerebral palsy and survivors of stroke. The Foundation, with its patented motor-rehabilitation platform that combines advanced neuroscience and artificial intelligence, was inspired by the life experience of their son, Mario, who suffered a disabling stroke at birth. Starting from an informal Facebook group of families, FightTheStroke has grown to encompass 1,000 families in Italy and is recognized internationally as a great leap forward in “community-led care.” In 2017, along with Gaslini Hospital in Genova, Francesca’s foundation opened Italy’s first Center for Neonatal and Pediatric Stroke, which served more than 200 children in its first four years.
Fighting COVID-19 and promoting peace in the Philippines
Carlito Guansing Galvez
Philippines 2006
Secretary
Armed Forces of the Philippines
As a career military man, Carlito has battled Islamic State-affiliated separatists, advised the Philippines’ president on peace negotiations, designed the army’s relief effort after Typhoon Ondoy and led the country’s task force on COVID-19. Of note in his majority-Christian country is his role negotiating peace on the impoverished southern island of Mindanao, where Muslims had waged an armed struggle for self-determination since 1968, resulting in more than 150,000 deaths. Under a power-sharing agreement negotiated in 2014, the Philippines government and the Moro Island Liberation Front agreed to cease fighting, leading five years later to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Protecting the environment and creating opportunities
Raul Gauto
Paraguay 1989
President
Forestal Sylvis
Raul returned to Paraguay from his fellowship with the new understanding that protecting the environment means protecting the people around it. Applying that knowledge, he helped create the 150,000-acre Mbaracayu Reserve, established a school for girls from the region’s poorest families and advanced the Fundacion Avina mission to educate Latin American leaders about sustainable development. In 2010 he founded Forestal Sylvis, a corporation that seeks to reduce climate change by planting commercial forests. This has resulted in a better quality of life for 4,000 families around Mbaracayu, producing over 600 graduates of the all-girls school there, supporting 250 farmers and their families with a new yerba mate factory and removing an estimated 27 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
Philanthropy that transforms lives
Sangita Jindal
India 2004
Chairperson
Jindal South West Foundation
A philanthropist committed to the transformative power of art, Sangita founded the Jindal Southwest Foundation (JSW) in 1988. She oversees its social-development projects in the areas of education, health and nutrition, environmental management and heritage preservation, with a focus on empowering rural communities. Various foundation projects have reached more than one million people in 1,000 villages across 14 Indian states. Sangita also publishes Art India magazine, an internationally circulated platform for discussion of contemporary Indian art, and established the Earth Care Awards to incentivize exemplary stewardship of business initiatives that affect climate change.
Digital tools for
Arabic literacy
Rama Kayyall
Jordan 2017
CEO and Co-Founder
Little Thinking Minds
“Little Thinking Minds” is the brainchild of Rama, who is on a mission to improve Arabic language learning across the Middle East and North Africa by creating engaging literacy tools that use digital content and technology for children ages 4 to 10. The year of Rama’s fellowship her company had 70,000 users. Today, 450,000 students are registered on its platforms.
Impact investments that better the world
Ted Levinson
USA 2014
CEO and Founder
Beneficial Returns
After his EF journey took him to India and Indonesia, where he met social entrepreneurs and impact investors, Ted found his life’s calling: Unlocking foundation capital and donor-advised funds so that the world’s leading social entrepreneurs can tackle big challenges with market-based solutions. The firm he founded, Beneficial Returns, had loaned more than $9 million to social enterprises in the developing world; by 2023, is has loaned over $6 million. In Baja California, Beneficial Returns loans have financed solar-powered freezers for remote fishing villages. In India they provided emergency credit to a mobile health clinic at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Cameroon they provided capital for small farms to increase their yields while connecting them to major buyers willing to pay a premium for the crops.
Holistic community development
Emma Miloyo
Kenya 2015
Director
Design Source
As Chairperson of the Board, Emma Miloyo leads the Kilimani Project Foundation, a community-based organization empowering Kilimani residents in Nairobi Kenya. The Foundation’s seek environmental conservation, youth empowerment, neighborhood safety, sustainable urban planning and local business development. Through various initiatives, the organization, to date, has collected 9,000 kgs of waste for recycling, planted 3,400 and tangibly reduced local crime. The Kilimani Foundation invests in the leadership and mental health of residents, promotes sustainable, healthier living environments and commits to the community’s holistic well-being.
Green-bonds and women’s empowerment
Nuru Mugambi
Kenya 2016
Former Director
Kenya Bankers Association
As director of the Kenya Bankers Association, Nuru designed the country’s first green-bond program to support small-and-medium-sized businesses. To date the program has distributed $45 million in microloans to more than 7,000 small to medium-sized businesses. She is a strong advocate of environmentally conscious investing and women’s economic empowerment. Established in 2020 the annual Angaza Awards, a program to showcase the role of African women in the continent’s financial affairs. Angaza in Swahili means “to “enlighten,” and has since expanded from an East Africa Award to a to a two-day Angaza Forum and Pan African Award with 50 honorees so far from 17 countries.
Combatting the global concussion crisis
Christopher Nowinski
USA 2011
Chief Executive Officer
Center for the Study of
Traumatic Encephalopathy
Boston University
A former defensive tackle at Harvard and World Wrestling Entertainment superstar, Chris co-founded the non-profit Concussion Legacy Foundation, a brain-injury research and prevention group that grew out of his work as CEO of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Forced to retire from wrestling at 24 due to post-concussion syndrome, he went on to write Head Games: The Global Concussion Crisis. On a mission to bring worldwide attention to CTE, he convinced the National Institutes of Health to recognize that CTE can be caused by repetitive head impacts. His advocacy led to the soccer practice of heading the ball being banned in the U.S. for players under 11 and a global campaign called “Stop Hitting Kids in the Head” to reform youth sports by eliminating all repetitive head impacts for children under 14. He recently launched the Concussion Legacy Foundation Global Brain Bank, collaborating with scientists in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, the U.K. and Canada to study CTE in athletes.
Trauma-informed care for Malaysians
Ellisha Othman
Malaysia 2020
Managing Director / Clinical Psychologist
Thrive Well Sdn Bhd
Ellisha established the nonprofit SOLS Health with the goal of destigmatizing Malaysia’s overburdened and under-resourced mental health care system, focusing on middle-class clients who were ineligible for government-funded services for the indigent. On fellowship she transitioned SOLS into Thrive Well, with the goal of improving existing mental health services by championing “trauma-informed care” and awareness of the importance of adverse childhood experiences. In addition to training clinical psychologists in new approaches, Thrive Well provides approximately 7,000 hours of therapy to about 200 clients per month and hosts a monthly radio program that educates the public on vital aspects of mental health.
Defending the freedoms of assembly and expression in Sri Lanka
Saliya Pieris
Sri Lanka 2012
President’s Counsel/ Chairman Law Chambers/ Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka
As the immediate past president of the 18,000-member Bar Association of Sri Lanka, Sailya promotes freedom of expression, association and assembly in a country that in 2022 was roiled by protests against the near-bankrupt government for mismanaging the economy. After demonstrations and mass arrests, lawyers led by Saliya’s example stepped up to defend the protesters against arbitrary detentions and the use of excessive force. Citing his “dynamic leadership in the nation’s time of strife,” LMD, Sri Lanka’s leading business magazine, chose Saliya as 2022’s “Sri Lankan of the Year.”
Walks to battle cancer
Nathan Sivagananathan
Sri Lanka 2015
Co-Founder and Director
Hatch
Since opening its doors in 2014, the Tellippalai Trail Cancer Hospital in rural northern Sri Lanka has treated more than 250,000 people. The first of its kind in the previously war-torn northern region of the island nation, the hospital was the brainchild of Nathan. He wanted to help patients battling cancer in Sri Lanka and to heal the country after its decades-long civil war. Through his organization, Trail, he led two cross-country fundraising walks, raising millions of dollars. The first was in 2011 to build the Tellippalai Trail Cancer Hospital in the north, and the second was in 2016 for the Karapitiya Trail Cancer Hospital, for which construction is underway.
A 21st century education for
1.5 million students
Vishal Talreja
India 2013
Co-Founder and Trustee
Dream a Dream
In India, a country of 260 million school-age children, Dream a Dream, the nonprofit co-founded by Vishal in 1999, has been transforming the educational ecosystem through its programming, curriculum development, pedagogical innovations and holistic assessments. With strategic partnerships in Bangalore and six Indian states, Dream a Dream has provided social-emotional learning and life-skills training for more than 3 million children. Its central mission: Rethink the purpose of education in the 21st century and offset the negative influence of adverse childhood experiences.
Innovative healthcare
in Kenya
Samuel Thenya
Kenya 2008
Founder and Director of Strategy
Nairobi Women’s Hospital
As chief executive officer of the Nairobi Women’s Hospital Group, its affiliated Hospital College and Gender Violence Recovery Centre, Samuel’s work was severely challenged by the Covid-19 pandemic. To accommodate patients who feared infection if they entered a hospital, his staff of 1,300 physicians, nurses and assistants became one of the first in the country to make wide use of telemedicine and home delivery of medicines. To invest in future generation of healthcare professionals, the Hospital is in the process of expanding the college from a student population of 1,500 to 10,000 in the next 5 years with plans to acquire a 20 acre state of the art campus.
Breaking taboos and progressing latrines
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba
Mongolia 2011
President
Local Solutions Foundation, NGO
On fellowship, Oyungerel investigated water management and quality solutions. Upon return in 2017, she launched a project to introduce indoor dry toilets in low-income areas of Mongolia. Executed through a non-profit, Local Solutions, which she founded in 2007, the educational and product development parts involve breaking taboos about toilets, changing outdoor pit latrines into indoor dry toilets and power off-grid, low income ‘Ger Area’ communities by changing their toilets. Due to Oyungerel’s efforts, the social stigma against the word “jorlon” (toilet in Mongolian) has disappeared in three years. Over 1000 people now have indoor dry toilets, and each progressive dry toilet saves 500 liters of water a day for a family of 5.
Urban transformation for the 21st Century
Alfonso Vegara Gomez
Spain 1987
Founder and President
Fundación Metrópoli
Alfonso Vegara Gomez returned from fellowship to found the Metropoli Foundation in 1997. This Foundation started with the project PROYECTO CITIES, identifying 20 cities from 5 continents as a global research laboratory to study the key factors of success of the cities. Leveraging public and private sectors, Metropoli contributes to the innovative transformation of cities and regions to cope with the global competitive and uncertain environment of the 21st century. For 25 years, Metropoli Foundation and Proyecto Cities initative have collaborated with Eisenhower Fellows around the world, having a visible impact in urban transformation an improving quality of life in cities of our generation.
4 billion meal
milestone
Shridhar Venkat
India 2014
Chief Executive Officer
Akshaya Patra Foundation
As chief executive of the 23-year-old Akshaya Patra Foundation, Shridhar runs the world’s largest, non-governmental school lunch program, feeding 2.2 million Indian children every day. Spread across 10 Indian states, the program is credited with decreasing malnutrition and incentivizing attendance at some 11,000 schools. Responding to the Covid-19 pandemic, Shridhar leveraged his company’s resources to ensure that the most affected groups were not deprived of food. In April 2024, Akshaya Patra reached the milestone of cumulatively serving 4 billion meals to people in need since inception, a momentous occasion which was commemorated at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Protecting rivers for endangered species
William Wayne Warren
USA 2006
Farm Owner/Manager
Warren Farms Inc./Warren Orchards
Co-sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, William Wayne Warren participated as a landowner to engineer and protect the Touchet River in Washington. The project involved managing the 100-year floodplain so the river could meander and have proper degradation and aggregation points essential for spawning threatened and endangered fish species. It took 3 years to implement in phases over a total of 3.1 river miles to allow the river corridor to become at least 3 times wider and to distribute energy and to provide a short-term and long-term habitat. Over 20 acres were also placed into conservation easement in perpetuity with Blue Mountain Land Trust and is protected from all agricultural purposes and future development.
Artists and performing
arts festivals
Shona McCarthy
Northern Ireland 2014
Chief Executive
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Kathy Richardson
Australia 2014
Executive Director
Our Community
Shona and Kathy combine performing arts with a novel assessment tool to assess the professional value of performing in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, billed as the world’s largest performing-arts event. Shona leads the charity behind the festival and Kathy leads Our Community, the social enterprise behind Outcomes Engine, the tool the pair uses to assess the career value of performing at Edinburgh Fringe, where the artists provide the production costs and bear the risks. Conceived in 1947 to heal the spirit of war-ravaged Europe, the annual August festival presents more than 50,000 performances by artists from 56 countries. The Outcomes Engine will help determine the value of participating by surveying the artists on the economic, cultural, social and psychological impacts they encounter, tracking such variables as career progression, income, news coverage and reviews.
2023 RECIPIENT
Regional independent journalism startup
Braimah, executive director of the nonprofit Media Foundation for West Africa based in Accra, expanded its mandate by creating “The Fourth Estate,” a center of excellence to mentor future generations of investigative journalists and strengthen government accountability. In two short years, the journalists he recruited have prompted government investigations, compelled judges and politicians to comply with ethics laws, exposed a scandal in fraudulent Covid travel certificates and put officials on notice that their actions are being closely scrutinized.
See James Hovey’s speech and Braimah Sulemana’s acceptance at the 2023 awards ceremony here.