Alumni Update:

After her fellowship, Alexandra has stayed on with her fellowship organization, eleQtra, as a financial associate and now splits her time between New York City and Kampala. She is currently working on developing and investing in a number of power projects in Uganda and Rwanda, including gas, solar, and hydro.

Fellow Bio:

Alie is from Tucson, AZ, and is a 2011 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Alie majored in Finance and minored in Mathematics, Economics, and French. While at Penn, Alie lived abroad twice in Compiègne and Paris, France, studying at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po. Since graduation, Alie has worked in the Public Sector and Infrastructure Investment Banking group at Goldman Sachs in New York City. In her free time, Alie enjoys dance, yoga, cooking, traveling, and running half marathons. While in Uganda next year, Alie looks forward to exploring East Africa, learning a new language, and influencing international infrastructure development through her work with EleQtra.

Akinyi Ochieng started her professional journey working with fast-growing innovators like Nova Credit and WorldRemit to design programs, initiatives and campaigns to advance economic mobility. After several years in the financial services industry, she joined APCO as a social impact consultant to help organizations align profit and purpose.

Akinyi is currently a senior associate director at APCO in New York where she works with leading corporations, foundations and nonprofits within North America, Europe and the Middle East, to improve and advance their social impact in the world. She has worked across various sectors such as technology, entertainment, financial services, consumer goods and education.

She holds a deep expertise in economic development and food security in Africa, with a successful track record of mobilizing multi-million-dollar public-private partnerships to accelerate sustainable business practices in the region. Her insights on business, culture, and politics in Africa have been featured in Forbes, CNBC, BBC, African Business Magazine and the World Economic Forum. She has continued her pursuit of sustaining and developing the African continent and its resources by serving as Board Chair of SOS Sahel USA and a Trustee of Operation Fistula, organizations that have proven to be dedicated to food security and maternal health in Africa. In 2019, she was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of African Descent under 40 . She has previously served as a co-president of the inaugural PiAf Alumni Board and was a Fellow at Global Shea Alliance in Accra, Ghana during her time as a Princeton in Africa Fellow.

Akinyi holds an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science and African Studies from Yale University. She also holds a certificate in Strategic Philanthropy from the University of Cambridge’s Judge School of Business.

Ahyeong graduated from Messiah College with a BA in Sociology and Anthropology and minor in Psychology. Her passion for diversity steadily grew as she became exposed to different cultures at an early age. As an international student, she dedicated herself to bringing diversity to the campus through various involvements. As a research assistant at the Office of Institutional Research, she conducted an independent research project regarding prospective international students’ recruitment process in efforts to increase the total international student enrollment. During her academic career, she pursued various cross-cultural experiences. In Ecuador, she participated in the Street Children Project, assisting children with the development of academic and social skills, building nutrition and hygiene awareness, as well as learning English. In Rwanda, she participated both in an internship and independent research project related to child malnutrition and the role of agriculture in rural nutrition. In Fiji, as a field researcher, she explored the sociological impact of clean water and focused on sustainability efforts to maintaining clean water systems. Ahyeong is grateful for the opportunity to work with Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project as a Monitoring and Evaluation Fellow and looks forward to being part of the Nyakagyezi community.