Shiemaa Ahmed

 

Shiemaa Ahmed

Shiemaa Ahmed has been working to drive change in her community for the past five years through social entrepreneurship and working with non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Shiemaa co-founded SudaCraft, a platform for marketing Sudanese handmade traditional crafts, and became more interested in the entrepreneurship eco-system building and enabling innovation. She is specifically interested in the role of social entrepreneurship in development and the impact of development planning on the entrepreneurship eco-system. Shiemaa then decided to work in developing the entrepreneurship eco-system in Sudan and works towards the strengthening of social start-ups and increasing their contributions to the overall development.

Shiemaa worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross on projects in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan. She also worked as a consultant with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and UNDP on social entrepreneurship projects. Prior to that, she worked at The Centre of Development and Public Policy (CDPP), one of the first think tanks in Sudan working on development research and projects. Interested in Economic and Social Development and using social entrepreneurship as a tool for development, Shiemaa holds a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a graduate diploma in Development Planning from the University of Khartoum. She is also an AMENDS fellow and a Mandela Washington Fellowship Fellow from the University of Notre Dame.

Shiemaa is a debater: having won the Arab Universities debating championship in 2015 she then co-founded Sudan Debates, a centre for promoting critical thinking and debates among university and high school students.