“I believe that as Africans, we need to be at the forefront of creating Africa-focused solutions and the only way to do that is by creating a platform that enables us to successfully innovate and create for the betterment of the continent.”
Ms. Almaz Negash is the Founder and the Executive Director of the African Diaspora Network (A.D.N.). In 2010, she founded A.D.N. to inform and engage Africans in the diaspora to facilitate direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to invest and improve the lives of everyone on the continent. Under her leadership and vision, A.D.N. is now the home of The African Diaspora Investment Symposium (A.D.I.S.), a marketplace for investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. She was recently honored by her selection as a Fellowship candidate at Stanford University.
Almaz Negash is a frequent speaker on regional and global development, authored several articles, and serves on many organizational, corporate, and advisory boards.
Almaz Negash is an Eritrean-born social entrepreneur who believes in the ability of individuals to gain economic self-sufficiency through social enterprise development and employment. She has spent the last two decades seeking to improve the quality of life in her local communities through local and global partnerships.
Almaz Negash, a prominent trailblazer in Silicon Valley, has been recognized as one of the 12 inaugural members of President Biden’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States. Leveraging over 25 years of experience in international trade, business management, and social innovation, Negash has been able to build successful partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, including Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, investors, and entrepreneurs based in the USA and around the world. She has also been named as one of Silicon Valley’s 100 outstanding Women of Influence for her significant contributions to social innovation.
She serves as the Senior Managing Director of Step-Up Silicon Valley, a social innovation network utilizing disruptive, research-based strategies to reduce poverty and increase economic opportunity in Silicon Valley.
One of her many contributions to community economic developments includes her leadership in the exploration and incubation of Pay for Success (aka Social Impact Bond), a new model of social innovation financing that resulted in reducing homelessness in Santa Clara County. Before founding A.D.N., Almaz was a member of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, where she contributed to the High-Level Panel on Migration (2017-2019).
In an earlier interview with Medium.com Almaz Negash spoke on the uniqueness of investing in Africa “Generally speaking, given that the VC atmosphere in Africa is vastly different from the US, businesses that fail to account for the difference in operational, infrastructural and environmental contexts, as well as the uniqueness, of each African country, are less likely to experience significant success. The fact that a health-tech start-up experiences immense success in Kenya does not guarantee that the success will be replicated in Nigeria, for instance.”
“As an African who has lived in America, with Americans, for years, I believe that love transcends color, ethnicity, creed, religion, income, and other societal barriers. It is that belief that enabled me to dare to bring Africans and friends of Africa together. The generosity and kindness of our global community feed me with hope and optimism.”
“That optimism and faith is also what led me to start the African Diaspora Network (ADN). In 2010, I noticed that the social entrepreneurship conversation was consistently about Africa, yet the voices, ideas, and financial backing of Africans were absent; both on the continent and in the Diaspora. As a member of the African Diaspora, I felt strongly that there was a need for an organization that would both honor the individual achievements of Africans in the Diaspora and on the continent, and provide a platform for these visionaries to put their minds together, collaborate, and spearhead the transformation that the African continent truly needs. I reached out to my wonderful friends and colleagues to see if my idea to create the African Diaspora Network made sense. The feedback was a resounding YES, and the rest is history.” She said.
Almaz holds an M.B.A. from Golden Gate University and a B.A. from the University of San Francisco and is a loving wife and proud mother of two children.
About the African Diaspora Network
African Diaspora Network is a registered non-profit organization. Our mission is to sustainably serve our constituencies, marketplace, and partners. This is inextricably linked to engaging the African diaspora through an ethics of care, enhancing their well-being in their adopted homelands, and facilitating their strategic involvement in the development of Africa.
We are the first organization to bring together a global network of Africans and friends of Africa connecting entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and leaders of nonprofit organizations, corporations, and official development agencies to learn, engage, and co-create possibilities. Our tangible results have cemented us as a trusted partner that provides real value to the ecosystem.
With almost 350 million people, the African Diaspora is mentioned as the Third largest group of alike persons in the world after China and India, but larger than The United States of America (323 million), Indonesia (258 million), and Brazil (205 million).
Stay tuned for more on Almaz Negash, one of the greatest assets to the African Global Business community and the Diasporan African community.
Culled from: African Diaspora Network, Medium.com , State of the African Diaspora,
