Dr. Faustine Ndugulile

Dr. Ndugulile is one of Tanzania’s foremost experts on Public Health, having worked as a doctor, a government official at the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and an advisor to the South African government. His focus has been especially on the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS: at the Ministry of Health, he increased the capacity of Tanzania’s laboratory services which were integral to the roll-out of a national programme of HIV/AIDS care. Switching to politics in 2010, Dr Ndugulile became the Member of Parliament for Tanzania’s third-largest constituency, Kigamboni in Dar es Salaam. He shares with CDI a vision of development from the grassroots and he has set up a number of community groups throughout his constituency. Dr Ndugulile has been an invaluable supporter of our work on the ground in Dar es Salaam.

Simon Anholt​

Simon Anholt is an independent policy advisor a who has counselled 50 government as well as cities and international organisations on how to maximise their global influence and reputation. Working directly with heads of state and government in the developed as well as the developing world, he advises on policy areas as diverse as cultural relations, sustainability and foreign direct investment. Simon Anholt pioneered the concepts of nation branding and competitive identity, fields in which he has researched and published extensively: his Nation Brands’ Index, which studies the reputation of 50 countries worldwide, is one of the largest surveys ever conducted. One of his books, Brand New Justice, presents the inspiring thesis that the power of brands could be redirected to spur the growth rather than the exploitation of developing economies.

Kate Dyer

Kate Dyer has been calling Tanzania home for 17 years now and has spent this time working with all the key players in the country’s development community. Currently she is the Director of a landmark, £31 million-strong governance and accountability programme called ‘Accountability in Tanzania’ (AcT) , administered by KPMG. AcT ìs supporting a diverse portfolio of civil society organisations dedicated to a wide range of issues, including land tenure, disabled rights and health access. It has been praised for its bold experimenting with innovative approaches to holding government to account for public service delivery. A Cambridge graduate, Kate Dyer is supporting CDI’s efforts to link up all four of our projects closely with the relevant institutions of the Tanzanian government – the surest way to achieve scale for a small organisation like CDI.

Dr. Solava Ibrahim

Dr Ibrahim’s research interests correspond closely to our work and focuses on the power of individual aspirations and capabilities to go beyond grassroots action and have a national impact. In addition to academic research, she has a wide range of professional experience, including a project with DfID that explored the transmission of poverty down generations, to developing indicators that measure agency, empowerment and inequality with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. Dr Ibrahim has joined CDI because she loves the prospect of giving Cambridge students high-level practical experience in development. She is excited to join us on our first volunteering trip in 2014 and to apply some of the research she has already conducted on grassroots initiatives in Uganda and Senegal in our target community of Dar es Salaam.

Dr. Shailendra Vyakarnam

Dr. Vyakarnam’s expertise in entrepreneurship has led him to take up influential positions in both policy-making and academia. Before joining Judge Business School (JBS), he advised governments and UN agencies on the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems and entrepreneurship education. For several years, he also developed growth programmes for small and medium enterprises such as AcceleratorIndia. Since joining JBS over ten years ago, the practitioner-led entrepreneurship curriculum he developed has blossomed, leading to its adoption by universities in several countries and winning Dr. Vyakarnam the ‘Best Entrepreneurship Professor’ award in 2011. Dr Vyakarnam shares CDI’s fervent belief that ours is a generation does not just look to earn money but passionately seeks to make a difference. CDI will now be able to benefit from his unique experience in training entrepreneurship.