Ezrah at UNGA Week

I am incredibly energised by my first time attending UNGA/Climate Week in New York City, having had the opportunity to reconnect with some of Ezrah's non-profit partners, foundations we love to collaborate with, and friends I've made along my squiggly career path. Here are a few of the many highlights:

• Spotlight Africa: Huge kudos to Segal Family Foundation for creating a beautiful convening center where dozens of entrepreneurs, funders, and ecosystem builders could both host formal events, and also meet each other serendipitously. This is where I happily ran into Pascale de la Fregonniere from Cartier Philanthropy , Mohamed Osman from Spring Impact and Leeat Gellis from Grand Challenges Canada , who I haven't seen since we both worked in Tanzania 15 years ago! A special highlight was the Celebration of African Visionaries - huge congratulations to Linda Kamau from AkiraChix and Charlotte Iraguha from Teach For Uganda!

• Livelihood Impact Fund Partners Luncheon: Given how closely aligned our foundation values are aligned, LIF events always feel like a family reunion. It was particularly wonderful to catch up with Jeremy Hockenstein and Jennifer Holt from LIF, Esther Wang from The Elevate Prize Foundation, Ezrah's partner Mona Mourshed from Generation, Lyndsay Holley Handler and Sidee Dlamini from Delta40 Venture Studio, Kaushi k Kappagantulu from Kheyti, and my family office counterpart Josh Kuckley, CFA.
• Skoll Foundation Reception: A lovely way to catch up with the beautifully extensive Skoll community: fellow funders like Edwin Ou from Skoll, Marion Ntiru from The ELMA Philanthropies , Simon Freeman and Upenyu (Uppi) Mawande from the Judith Neilson Foundation and Diana Won from The Pershing Square Foundation; social entrepreneurs such as Martin Fisher from KickStart International, Hatim Eltayeb and Wade Zamechek from African Leadership Academy; and ecosystem enablers like Rebecca Sharp from IDinsight.
• Yiya Solutions Breakfast: Hosted by the wonderful David and Lisa Issroff from the Issroff Family Foundation, founders Samson Muwanguzi Wambuzi and Erin Fitzgerald taught us that anyone can be an inventor with a few resources and teamwork!

• "Harnessing AI for the Future of Africa" hosted by the Global Business Coalition for Education: Very interesting panel discussion asking questions such as "What will teachers need to make the best use of AI? and "Are youth entering the workforce ready for an AI economy?" I loved hearing insights from Rapelang Rabana from Imagine Worldwide, Suzan (Sam) Miller from Google DeepMind, Salima Bah, ICT Minister of Sierra Leone, and Dr. ‘Bosun Tijani, ICT Minister of Nigeria as well as catching up with Ezrah partner Julie Clugage from Team4Tech and fellow livelihood funder Matt Zieger from GitLab Foundation.

• African Visionary Fund / Rippleworks "Stories of Local Leadership" Reception: Another beautiful reception celebrating proximate leaders such as Wawira Njiru from Food For Education and Katumba James S. from Wezesha Impact:

• P150 Going Global Breakfast: I've absolutely loved being a member of P150 and it was so lovely to meet folks in person such as Katarina Czarniak and Mitali Chakraborty from P150 and Ellie Bertani from GitLab Foundation . Special shoutout to two of my earliest friends in philanthropy: Aude Anquetil from Livelihood Impact Fund and Ellie Neilson from Segal Family Foundation .

• Catalyst 2030 Event: I haven't been deeply involved in Catalyst2030, but I am grateful for all of the members we got to meet in both Nigeria and Senegal earlier this year, and enjoyed hearing more about their Africa Forward Initiative.

• VisionSpring Reception: Ever since taking David Lehr and Jocelyn Wyatt's Social Enterprise class over 15 years ago at UC Berkeley - Haas, I have admired the access-to-eyeglasses social enterprise that Jordan Kassalow founded, and loved speaking with CEO Ella Gudwin, Abigail Steinberg from Livelihood Impact Fund, Jessica Vernon from Maisha Meds, Boris Bulayev from Educate! and Shawn Holden Cheung from Raising The Village.

• CASH Coalition Breakfast: What a beautifully moderated panel on the challenging topic of carbon financing that actually benefits smallholder farmers and land managers across the Global South! Key theme was aligning incentives: "Financiers are coming for the icing, but the cake should be maximized for farmers." Great to catch up with Ezrah's partners One Acre Fund (John Mundy, Matthew Forti, Phoebe Lane), Root Capital (Willy Foote) and other CASH members Debbie Aung Din and Jim Taylor from Proximity Designs.

• Acumen Up Close: Having been a huge fan of Acumen ever since my days as an MBA student at Haas, it was inspiring to spend lunch discussing agricultural innovation with Jacqueline Novogratz, Christopher Wayne, Chris Maranga, Sabrina Lee Sanchez, Karen Paterson, and Jean Shia from the Autodesk Foundation.

• AfricaRising Roundtable: Loved hearing insights from Paulin BASINGA from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Niloufer Memon from The Bridgespan Group, Dr. Joanne Rotich Korir from the Equity Group Foundation, Jenelle Sirleaf from the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development (EJS Center), and Muhsin Hassan from Lever for Change:

• CorpsAfrica Reception: What a beautiful celebration of Africa's version of the US Peace Corps! The highlight was getting to hear keynote speeches from UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf:

• Finally, I loved having a few meetings with Rapelang Rabana and Joe Wolf from Imagine Worldwide, Tomáš Kessl from EIDU, Shashi Buluswar from the Institute for Transformative Technologies, Tarek Mouganie, PhD from Affinity Ghana, Ramon Lecuona Torres from The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and most of all, my amazing trustee David, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Flying back to London filled with gratitude and hope in the midst of turbulent times!