Digital Strategies for Grassroots Organizing - #YALITechCamp Pretoria will be held on the 21st and 22nd of October 2015 and a vast array of trainers will be sharing their expertise and facilitating dialogue among #YALI members who are attending the #YALITechCamp. The camp will be focusing on using Digital strtegies for effective grassroots mobilisation for change. This is a worthwhile topic in Africa where a lot has to be done to transform the continent in every facet of life. #mathsgenius

1. Tara McMahon
Tara McMahon currently serves as the Digital Creative Director
at Climate Action Campaign – a coalition of environmental
organizations fighting for clean air protections and initiatives to
address climate change. She develops digital content that helps
drive the narrative across the environmental community on
these issues. Previously she's worked with clients and
campaigns to find creative ways to use digital media to connect
directly with audiences and voters.
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Edzai Conilias Zvobwo
Edzai is the Math Genius. He is a vibrant and
knowledgeable mathematician, author,
researcher and speaker specializing in
mathematical thinking, innovation and
problem solving. He is the 2014 South
African and SADC winner of Women
Empowerment in Education and Training
awards. Edzai has worked as a high school
Math Teacher, Business Analyst/Project
Manager in the mobile payments industry.
Today he contributes regularly to the solution of the math challenges facing South Africa
through radio, television, social media and newspapers.

2. Franklin Huizies
Franklin Huizies is passionate about Community Radio, and
how it can bring hope and be a catalyst of local development. In
1995, Franklin established a local radio station in Paarl. He co-
founded Radio KC soon after. In 2005 he accepted an
appointment as national Radio Stations Coordinator by the
National Community Radio Forum of South Africa and became
the CEO at the end of 2006. In 2010 Franklin started consulting
work and was appointed by UNESCO on a community radio
expert panel. He has contributed to the development of
community radio in several African countries such as, South
Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Kenya
through training and capacity building. Franklin rejoined the
Radio KC team in 2012 August as Board Member and was appointed Managing
Director in July 2013. Currently, he is a Fellow with the Leadership Indaba Program at
the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University.
Maureen McCarty
Maureen McCarty is the Deputy Director of Marketing at the
Human Rights Campaign. She operates as editor-in-chief of
HRC’s award-winning blog, manages several of its social media
platforms, and coordinates many of the organization’s rapid
response campaigns. In 2013, McCarty orchestrated HRC’s
content marketing for the groundbreaking “red equal sign”
campaign. In just a few short days of the campaign launch, as
many as 10 million people used the image on social media--
including celebrities, major corporations and leading politicians.
The logo was named 2013's "Symbol of the Year" and
Facebook declared the campaign the most successful viral effort in the site's history.
SXSW, Mashable, PR News, In-House Design and American Advertising have also
recognized the “red equal sign” campaign for its worldwide impact.

3. Alex Pitkin
Alex Pitkin joined the FrontlineSMS production team in Nairobi
in January 2013 as the CTO. Alex runs all areas of the
production team including product development, technical
design and client-side consulting helping users new and old
implement projects using the Frontline suite of apps. Before
running SMS-driven projects with Frontline, he worked in the
digital democracy space for over 9 years with experience in
consultation & crowd sourcing web apps, viral marketing and
varied use of digital tools to connect people with decision
makers. As a lead producer and director of Delib (a UK-based
digital democracy company), Pitkin built applications for many
international public sector organisations including the UK
central government (Cabinet Office, DECC, DH, TfL, BIS and more) and similarly in the
US (Dept. of Homeland Security, White House).
Aisha Satterwhite
Aisha leads the Washington, DC office of Blue State
Digital, an agency that builds and mobilizes
communities for the world’s leading nonprofits,
advocacy groups, brands and political candidates. For
the past 20 years, Aisha has been working in the
areas of digital strategy, technical project/product
management, web development, online/offline
advocacy, community engagement and traditional
communications and messaging for nonprofits,
associations, faith-based organizations and unions.
Her passion for merging process, technology and
advocacy is rooted in her grassroots organizing and political campaign work. She has
used technology as a tool to win advocacy and political campaigns and supporters for
local, national and global community engagements for The Africa Fund and The Ford
Foundation, One Economy Corporation, Service Employees International Union,
National Education Association, the Obama campaign and Human Rights Campaign.

4. Adebayo Okeowo
Bayo currently works for the Centre for Human Rights based
in Pretoria, South Africa. As a lawyer, his passion is poured
into defending the ordinary citizen from human rights abuses.
His professional experience cuts across organizations such
as Global Rights, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,
Global Integrity, the Social and Economic Rights Action
Centre, amongst others. Bayo has on several occasions
coordinated projects and campaigns which made use of
audio visuals to communicate key human rights messages.
Some of his videos have received airplay on TV channels
such as SABC and his photos have won human rights photo contests both in Africa and
Europe.
Emmanuel Etim
Emmanuel has over 14 years of experience in the production of
audio-visual media content and communications.
He is skilled at documenting a wide range of video concepts
and as a result has contributed significantly to numerous
publications, training videos and hands-on lectures in North
America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of the current clients or
partners for fact-based content include the Open Society
Foundation, The Africa Channel, Oxfam Ghana, the US State
Department, My Africa Is and the World Bank. In fiction based
media, Emmanuel typically plays the role of a Producer or cinematographer. He is
currently serving as an Associate Producer for season 2 of the hit web series- An
African City.

5. Fatu Ogwuche
Fatu Ogwuche has five years experience in the public sector and
electoral processes. She was the New Media Consultant at the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) where she
was instrumental in project management, capacity development
and developing strategies for sustaining citizen engagement with
the Commission using new media. Fatu worked with African
Elections Project (AEP) as a New Media Consultant in the 2012
Ghanaian elections, and coordinated an orientation of over forty
volunteers from the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of
Technology (MEST), on the use of new media to monitor
elections. Fatu played a significant role in planning the 2015 elections and she
coordinated activities in the Commission’s Situation Room on election days. Fatu is
currently delving into the technology and elections field to explore how technology can
improve electoral processes in Africa. Fatu is also a Mandela Washington Fellow.
Percy Morapedi Koji
Percy is a 31-year old South African from the small town of
Taung in the North West Province who is passionate about his
country, its people and its future. He was awarded a scholarship
by the European Union to complete a diploma in Intercultural
Communications, Gender & Globalization at Fulda University in
Germany where he graduated in 2012. Percy is passionate
about serving the community and tackling South Africa’s terrible
education crisis. He values giving back those within his
community so he has set out to build a community library in
Taung. As the Head of Youth Development at Afrika Leadership
Development Institute, Percy uses technology to address
democracy, provide Training & Leadership programmes among youth and
Professionals on various topics. He is currently the Chairperson of the Youth Council in
Johannesburg and ward Committee Member with the City of Johannesburg. Percy is
also a Mandela Washington Fellow.

6. James Devine
James is the Chief Information and Innovation Officer as
well as one of the founding members at Project Isizwe, an
NGO that is committed to rolling out Free WiFi in South
Africa. James designs the innovation and technology
providing Free WiFI to over 56,000 daily unique users at
over 700 sites, which Project Isizwe believes will create a
catalyst for improved education, economic development
and social cohesion. He has worked his way through the
IT ranks over 17 years, starting his career as a Computer
Technician at Hattech Computer back in 1998. He has
gained extensive experience in the telecommunications
sector, including: – Solution Architect, VAS & Group IT Manager ( at iBurst),
Professional Services Engineer ( at Systems Fusion SA), Senior Network and Security
Specialist ( at Intekom / TelkomSA ), Help-desk Consultant / and Network Analyst (at
FirstNet).
Dr Matlotleng Matlou
Focused on finding creative and visual ways to share and
promote information, including via cartoons and satire-based
visual storytelling, Ntate Matlou has a deep history of
marketing organizations and advocacy outreach. An expert
on migration, he was born in South Africa in the 1950s and
left the country early with his parents (who were involved in
the decolonisation and anti-Apartheid struggles) and siblings
starting in Botswana, Tanzania, Ghana and then Nigeria. He
lectured at the University of Liberia, and then proceeded to
England for a doctorate, specialising on forced migration. He
spent a year working for the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, Kenya, before returning to post-democratic South
Africa in 1994. First working in the private sector for a brief
period; then the Northern Cape Province as Adviser to the
Premier and Director-General, including supporting local
municipalities and improving their capacity for establishing and implementing
development programmes. He then spent a decade in the national public sector
heading immigration and tourism. As part of life-long learning, he completed a BPhil in
Knowledge Management with the University of Stellenbosch and presently works as a
director of Excelsior Afrika Consulting; lectures part-time at the Institute of African
Renaissance, University of South Africa and is Professor Leadership and Governance,

7. Nobel International Business School, Accra Ghana. Furthermore, he is Head
Governance and Leadership, Afrika Leadership Leadership Development Institute.
Emilar Vusche-Gandhi
Emilar Vushe - Gandhi leads the policy work in Africa for the
Association for Progressive Communications (APC), an
international network of organizations working with Information
and Communications Technologies (ICT) to support social
justice and development. Emilar iis devoted to ICT policy
development and has over the years been engaged in
expanding it from a multi-stakeholder approach at national and
regional levels in Africa. She is a trainer and facilitator and has
managed several projects that aim to contribute to policies
that are guided by human rights and are in favour of the user.
Prior to joining APC in 2009, Emilar worked as a researcher
on media and human rights. She holds a Bachelor of Science
in Information Science from the National University of Science and Technology.
Hlanganani Gumbi
Hlanganani Gumbi has eight years’
experience in politics and is currently a
member of the provincial legislature in
KwaZulu-Natal. He is spokesperson for
Human Settlements and Sports and
Recreation and is a former-elected city
councilor in the eThekwini Municipality where
he was also the Human Settlements
Spokesperson and had a short time in the
Economic Development Portfolio Committee.
Hlanganani has worked extensively in various communication roles in the Democratic
Alliance, the official political party to which he belongs, which is the official opposition.
He has been an elections spokesperson, a former federal chairperson for training and
development, and been in charge of the strategic markets campaign in his province. On
returning from the Fellowship, he would like to begin a housing project focused on
environmentally-friendly, sustainable, alternative housing materials and technologies, to
change perceptions in society.

8. Jess Shorland
Jess is a product manager for Ushahidi, a platform that allows
people to collect meaningful data, get the real-time pulse of any
situation, respond to issues, and increase awareness through
data visualizations. She studied game theory and war at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and moved to Nairobi
shortly thereafter. She has worked with a start up incubator and
seed fund, developed an alternative lending product for Kenyan
businesses, and most recently led product at the pan-African
online car marketplace Cheki