Episode 31: Super-charging African diaspora entrepreneurship - with ADN's Almaz Negash

The Migration & Diaspora Podcast

A very good morning to you and you're listening to the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, one of the fastest-growing podcasts on migration and diaspora issues in the world... probably.

I'm delighted to welcome to the show, Almaz Negash, the Founder and Executive Director of the African Diaspora Network (ADN), an exciting network, based in Silicon Valley, that I've just joined as a member of the ADN Executive Leadership Council.

Almaz has been named one of the 100 outstanding Silicon Valley Women of Influence for her work in social innovation. In 2010, she founded the ADN, whose mission is to inform and engage Africans in the diaspora and facilitate direct collaboration with social entrepreneurs, innovators and business leaders to invest and improve the lives of everyone on the continent and the communities where they live. Under her leadership and vision, ADN is now the home of the annual African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS), Builders of Africa’s Future, Impact & Investment Forums, and Builders of America’s Future. The latter is a new programme developed to provide access to capital for black-led startups.

Almaz has also contributed to the UN Economic Commission for Africa's High-Level Panel on Migration and has served as an Executive in Residence for the School of Global Innovation & Leadership within the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business at San Jose State University. And this is in addition to her long career in the US spanning the trade, innovation and educational arenas, following her move from Eritrea via the Netherlands.

I'm excited to share with you both Almaz's own fascinating migration and diaspora story, as well as some of ADN's brilliant work and Almaz's many insights gained from founding and growing the network. I was particularly keen to talk to her about the merits of such pan-African diaspora networks, their work with African-Americans, and how ADN has managed to broker some very interesting partnerships with the types of organisations that we haven't talked about on this podcasts, such as Facebook and MasterCard.

As ever, I'd like to thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoy the show.

Useful links

• Connect with Almaz - https://www.linkedin.com/in/almaznegash/ https://twitter.com/almaznegash?lang=en
• African Diaspora Network - https://www.africandiasporanetwork.org/ https://twitter.com/AfricanDNetwork
• African Diaspora Investment Symposium (ADIS) - https://www.africandiasporanetwork.org/what-is-adis/
• Accelerating Black Leadership and Entrepreneurship (ABLE) - https://africandiasporanetwork.org/able/