#AUDigitalFellowsDiary — March, 2022
By Lorretta Binu Kade from Kenya, an AU Digital and Innovation Fellow
It is exactly one month since I assumed office in the Youth for Peace Africa Program, and I can summarise the overarching lesson as: it is not about having ideas. It is about making ideas happen. To realize any results and get value from the experience, I have to take initiative.
It has been a big discovery for me. Seeing how things run in the background of a continental organisation such as the AU has left me in awe. I have seen the details and efforts that go behind managing stakeholder relationships and decision making. This I have experienced particularly when meeting and observing how the African Youth Ambassadors for Peace, who are part of the stakeholders Youth for Peace Africa Program Works with, represent youth efforts and voices. I sure do enjoy having a front seat to this, and I am genuinely excited to help make their work, and other stakeholders Y4P Africa Program work with very easy. There is a lot of background effort going into the work they do, and I am happy to get an opportunity to streamline some of the processes which affect them as stakeholders, and to an extent, many youths in Africa.
One thing I have accomplished and really proud of is the patience and resilience I have exhibited in getting information on the potential areas I could work on during my fellowship year. This is a very important step as it allows for root cause identification, and to meaningfully contribute toward building systems that solve them. Asking questions, scheduling departmental meetings to follow up on responses and generally going out of my way to make things happen with regard to the research makes me a very proud fellow!
One quality I realized I need to help me accomplish my fellowship goal is effective time management. There are many things to be done in relation to the fellowship and while working with a team, I need to learn how to effectively allocate time for different tasks while paying close attention to the difficulty index of the different people I work with.
I am also particularly keen on learning how to incorporate easy to follow graphics because after all, pictures speak a thousand words. As we work with different stakeholders, I realize making it easy for people to follow and be incorporated into what we are doing will be very useful!
Meet Lorretta Binu Kade
My change-making journey started back in 2017 when I worked with The Nile Project, a pan-African NGO sensitizing riparian communities on inter-cultural cooperation to solve the Nile sustainability challenges. During that experience, two things stood out for me: my passion to work with initiatives dedicated to inclusion, and my love for coming up with innovative solutions for contemporary issues.
My motivation to join the AU Digital innovation fellowship is in part inspired by that experience and my ambition of helping organizations and people with an impact on the lives of Africans. With my background working in alternating roles as a project lead and a research and development analyst in the digital strategy team, I make, deliver and evaluate the efficacy of innovative solutions daily. Joining the AU Digital innovation fellowship, where I will guide the development, delivery and assessment of different tech solutions for Africans, is fulfilling. I am excited to use the range of experiences I have garnered from both my current and previous roles to bridge systemic gaps with technology.
Nurturing young people’s leadership helps create a space for our voices and creativity, and offers an opportunity for us to enter into discussion with other stakeholders, thus bridging a vast communication gap and providing a forum for dialogue, innovation, and collaboration. This is the Africa that I want to be in, one that rises together with its young people and leaves no one behind. The AU Digital innovation fellowship supports this narrative and I cannot wait to be thoroughly engaged in nurturing and realising the African dream through technology.
