Ory Okolloh
Ory Okolloh (or Ory Okolloh Mwangi) is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger. She is Director of Investments at Omidyar Network.[1][2][3] She was formerly the Policy Manager for Africa with Google.
In 2006 she co-founded the parliamentary watchdog site Mzalendo (Swahili: "Patriot").[4] The site sought to increase government accountability by systematically recording bills, speeches, MPs, standing orders, etc.[4][5]
When Kenya was engulfed in violence following a disputed presidential election in 2007, Okolloh helped create Ushahidi (Swahili: "Witness"), a website that collected and recorded eyewitness reports of violence using text messages and Google Maps.[6] The technology has since been adapted for other purposes (including monitoring elections and tracking pharmaceutical availability) and used in a number of other countries.
Okolloh has a personal blog, Kenyan Pundit, which was featured on Global Voices Online.[7]
She has worked as a legal consultant for NGOs and has worked at Covington and Burling, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and the World Bank.[8][9]
Okolloh was appointed on the Board of Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company, the body that acts as a guardian of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles in May 2015.[10]
Okolloh was born into a relatively poor family.[11][12] She has said that her parents sent her to a private elementary school that they could "barely afford," which "set the foundation for what ended up being my career."[12] She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2005.[6][9] Her father died of AIDS in 1999.[11][12] Okolloh lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her husband and three children.[11]
Notes
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
