Ifewumi Fagunwa | NHS/The SHAKE Africa Project
As the daughter of Nigerian parents, who is blessed to have much certainty in her life, Ifewumi grew up in a household where she was empowered during her girlhood and womanhood to always have a voice, to be seen, to have choices.
Wumi has been committed to using her voice, privilege and power to help women have the same privilege and power, to be heard.
Ifewumi recently graduated from University College London Medical School (Class of Corona) and has been working as a junior doctor during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has a long-standing interest in health care policy and a particular interest in women's rights, sexual health and psychosexual health. She has extensive experience working with a multitude of health care and sexual health organisations including Cancer Research UK and the Family Planning Association in the UK.
In 2019, her final year of medical school Ifewumi founded, The SHAKE Africa Project (aka SHAKE Africa)SHAKE Africa uses innovative ventures to educate and empower young people in Nigeria and the African Diaspora on issues surrounding their sexual and reproductive health.
As a keen advocate for sexual and reproductive health rights and actively campaigns against gender-based violence and FGM, in 2020, Ifewumi joined the young women's advisory council for Forward:UK – the leading African women-led organisation working to end violence against women and girls.
Having previously volunteered volunteered for Sexpression:UK as a near-peer sex educator and later became their regional representative for the Midlands and Northern Ireland, in January 2021 she was appointed as a Trustee for Sexpression:UK. She has also volunteered with Education for Choice, teaching young people at inner city schools about contraception and abortion care.
Devina Maru | Royal College of General Practitioners
Devina is proactive in her roles to help develop the social movement of impact and change and contribute to healthcare policy and implement changes nationally.
Her work has been noticed and for her contribution to medical education, training and policy for Junior Doctors nationally and she was invited to 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister and Health Secretary.
Devina is the appointed national RCGP Clinical Champion for Hearing Loss and collaborated with NHS England/Improvement and The Royal National Institute for Deaf People. She contributed to ENT related consultations from NICE, UK National Screening Committee, Department of Health and reviewed NIHR research proposals for the Health Technology Assessment Programme. She is currently working with the team at NIHR James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnerships for anosmia and ageusia.
Dr Maru was invited to sit on the international Ototoxicity Committee, for the Department of Defence Hearing Centre of Excellence. It comprises doctors, scientists and researchers across the world with an interest in ototoxicity and otoprotection, helping the Department of Health, veterans, and civilian populations.
Her work in healthcare leadership, medico-politics and healthcare policy has brought about change and put forward solutions to benefit the health sector and she has been selected for the National Medical Director's Fellowship, a prestigious scheme to develop a growing pool of future medical leaders who will go on to shape healthcare in this country.
Devina is an advocate for young female leaders and was selected to speak in the Health Leadership Academy House of Lords event on Women in Leadership and won the RCGP national awards for Foundation Doctor of the Year 2019 and GP Speciality Registrar award 2021.
Whilst working as a Doctor in London, Devina has seen how wider determinants of health, access to care and health behaviours have resulted in health inequalities amongst our communities. She is a co-founder of a Charity educating, promoting and improving young people’s health and wellbeing in deprived areas and providing opportunities for lower socio-economic and ethnic minorities. She strongly believes we must encourage and foster health promotion and have a proactive approach. Collaborating with schools and empowering young people to live healthier lives by improving their physical, mental and social wellbeing is the start of the journey to foster a healthier culture in generations to come.
Asha Mohammed | NHS
Asha is an award winning second year junior doctor who graduated from Bristol medical school in 2019.
Asha is described as an activist and has made it her mission to tackle gender-based violence with a specific focus on female genital mutilation. Asha is a lead outreach worker for the charity Integrate UK which she works closely with on the subject of preventing gender-based violence through peer educational teaching. Asha has a passion for gender equality, promoting health for the BAME population and women's health and has extensive experience within a hospital setting as an NHS doctor.
Alice Hendy | R;pple Suicide Prevention
Alice Hendy tragically lost her brother, Josh, on the 25th November 2020 from suicide. Josh was her only sibling, and sadly passed away too soon at just 21 years of age.
Alice’s day job involves working in IT and Cyber Security, with experience in working for global financial institutions and insurance firms in the city of London.
After examining Josh’s phone and laptop following his death, Alice found that Josh had been researching techniques to take his own life via internet searches, suicide forums and video tutorials.
The content available online following a harmful online search is far too readily available and fails to provide enough of an intervention between a user searching for harmful content and the subsequent display of the search results.
To ensure more help and support is given to individuals in mental health crisis and searching for harmful content online, Alice set up R;pple Suicide Prevention.
R;pple addresses the lack of intervention and instead provides an immediate, vibrant display on a user’s device once they have been flagged as searching for online content relating to self-harm or suicide.
R;pple is an online nudge technique which consists of a powerful message of hope, as well as providing a selection of mental health support resources in a range of different communicative options (call, text, webchat, self-help app, pocket resources).
Through R;pple, an individual feeling despair and researching harmful content will be urged to instead seek mental health support they deserve and need in a way that works best for them.
Amandine Flachs | WildMeta
Supporting early-stage startup founders for the past 10 years in France, the USA and the UK, Amandine has helped transform technical solutions into understandable commercial offers, launch innovative products, build communities, and bring technical & non-technical teams together.
In late 2019, she co-founded WildMeta to help video game developers create smarter and more human-like AIs with machine learning. Using WildMeta's custom framework, the team can build AIs that play video games as bots, players or NPCs to support the development of the next generation of games and improve players' experience.
Amandine is also an active VC scout, a startup mentor involved in several programmes and accelerators, and the producer and host of Entrepreneurs Playing Games - a series of bi-monthly live video AMAs with founders to deep dive into their journey and challenges.
Jennifer Ogunyemi | Sisters in Business
Jennifer is passionate about representation, religious diversity and Inclusion.
Prior to founding Sisters In Business Jennifer has built a 10 year career within the NHS working with diverse and vulnerable communities, which spans from Maternity health, Project management, community development and GP management. Jennifer decided to step away and focus on what she care about the most - changing the narrative of the Muslim business woman.
Sophia Parvizi-Wayne | Trado Technologies
I recently graduated from Duke University, North Carolina with high distinction in History and Journalism, with a minor in Innovation and Entrepeneaurship.
In the last year I founded Trado, a narrative technology company that uses NLP and modern storytelling techniques to tell any story using voice. Over the last nine months, we not only built out our product but hired, raised and created a product that hundreds are already excited to be a part of.(https://tradobooks.com)
Before that, I was involved in the early stages of the fem-tech company Freda, a period care company changing the way women view menstruation. Building out a company in a time where periods were incredibly stigmatised teaches you a lot about brand narrative, sales and partnerships for sure. You can find out more about Freda here (https://myfreda.com).
At school, my focus was in the mental health space. Having suffered from Anorexia Nervosa, I launched a nationwide campaign to get mental health on the national curriculum. From hundreds of tv and radio appearances to working within parliament, our pilot scheme is now running with 30,000 children. That was the first time I knew I could solve a problem when I saw one.
Sarah-Jane Mintey MBE | Developing Experts
Sarah Mintey MBE a former headteacher founded a fast-growing edtech company called Developing Experts in 2015.
In 2019 it won Tech Nation's 2019 Rising Star Winners, and in 2020 was one of 10 UK companies on Google's Immersion Growth Program for 2020. In September Sarah was awarded an MBE for services to Tech and Education. Her science curriculum is now used by over 5000 UK schools and is used by the rail and energy sectors to recruit their future talent pipelines.
In February 2021 Sarah will be launching her platform into China after securing a contract with the Chinese Government. Sarah was recently named by Startup Magazine as one of the 'Top 20 Most Influential Female Founders of 2020’.
Anaya Kamara | Anaya Hair and Beauty
I am the founder of Anaya Hair and Beauty, a mobile hairdressing platform that brings beauty to your doorsteps working with a team of hairdressers, barbers and makeup artists.
My background is IT (Information Systems Development) MSc Masters of Science with tons of industrial qualifications.
In January 2006 I experienced a gruesome car accident that took my Dad’s life and I survived with few others. This lead to memory loss and severe trauma due to the shock with leg and body injuries. I was unable to go back to my IT job and was on incapacity benefits whilst going through treatments, counselling and therapy. It was during this time I started to help women in my former estate to do their hair whilst my leg was been treated and sitting down whole day at home. I began making use of time and keeping the mind busy. This went on for 2 years and the word of mouth spreads fast and as my body and mind were healing so does my customers grew and I decided to come off benefits and went on a business start up course with HMRC followed by enrolling in Newham college to study hairdressing All hair types. I gained levels 2&3 Diplomas in Women’s hairdressing and later also gained a Diploma in Beauty Therapy level 2.
I started working as a solo hairdresser for 7 years as I breakthrough in 2016 when I received an Award for Inspirational Entrepreneur by REEBA Awards Organisation. This lead to further open doors and I transits from Solo hairdresser into a platform bringing other hairdressers along so that they can showcase their skills and add value to the community.
Our team as been recognised as UK Top Afro stylist on the Afro Hair and Beauty Show sponsored by BBC in 2018 which makes us proud.
Further more our team strive for excellent in bringing good customer and communication skills whilst on the job. Our platform is structured with systematic processes with a corporate edge that makes us stand out from our competitors.
We are here to stay are our aim is to take it to full national level adding value to our nation in the hairdressing and beauty field balancing work and our clients lifestyle.
Grace Ballantyne | Ballantyne Group
Grace is the Founder of Ballantyne Group, a property development consultancy working with landowners and fellow property developers.
Previously, Grace was Head of Acquisitions at a property development and investment business with a pipeline of projects worth over £250m. Her focus was on site acquisitions and deal structuring, having previously set up the operational functions of the business. Grace now provides development consultancy and advice to the business through her company, Ballantyne Group.
Grace has a corporate background in marketing and has consulted for several businesses in the property sector including senior lenders, crowdfunding platforms and co-working spaces. Having worked closely with the founding team at a development finance fund she has invaluable insight of assessing development deals from a lender’s perspective. Furthermore, Grace has raised private finance for development projects and is experienced in working with investors and equity partners, including with real estate focused family offices.