The Speakers
Cassandra Akinde - Executive Director, The Neo Child Initiative for Africa (TNCI)
Dr Cassandra Akinde is a public health physician working in the nexus of preventive medicine and epidemiology, and a research consultant committed to strengthening health systems and improving population health outcomes, especially in children living in underserved and marginalized communities in Nigeria. She currently serves as the Executive Director of The Neo Child Initiative for Africa (TNCI), an NGO that seeks to improve access to essential healthcare services and sustainable education among children in low-resource settings in Nigeria. Through this initiative, she and her team have conducted over 20 community health programs focused on WASH, Nutrition, Deworming, Malaria, and vaccine-preventable diseases impacting over 20,000 children in Nigeria.
Dr Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi - Founder and CEO, ScholarshipCafe
Dr. Olumuyiwa Igbalajobi, a native of Efon Alaaye, Ekiti State, Nigeria, holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany. He earned a Master's degree from Daejeon University in South Korea and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. His academic journey spans four continents—Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America—during which he secured scholarships exceeding $1 million, showcasing his global academic prowess.Having left Nigeria 11 years ago with $100, courtesy of a fully funded scholarship, to pursue his master's degree, this experience inspired him to create Scholarships Cafe, a cutting-edge AI predictive platform, empowering students to effortlessly discover and apply for scholarships. The platform's impact is profound, reaching users in over 200 countries, fostering over 60,000 success stories, and facilitating over $1 billion in awards and scholarships.
Matt DeHart - Founder, Teach from DeHart Foundation
Matt DeHart is a young, revolutionary educator on a mission to help create educational change through intentional and community-centered methods. He is a District Teacher of the Year winner, the “Face of Teacher Education” for his alma mater, Lt. Governor Challenge Medal Recipient, and a Top 10 Under 10 Year alumni award winner. Matt leads a non-profit, the Teach from DeHart Foundation, to take his students on life-changing trips across the US. His organization is still impacting students across multiple states. Seeing a need for revolutionary education in a Pittsburgh, PA suburb, Matt has used his non-profit to create a middle school in Arnold, PA, called the Teach from DeHart Academy. TFDA will educate the students (5th-8th grade) and their parents through an adult learning program. Matt DeHart is on a crash course with destiny. One of the youngest educational professionals to start a school, he is seeking to help create excitement around education and 21st-century methods that engage every student and teacher alike.
Linta Mustafa - Cofounder and CEO, Vitract
Linta is a former national wrestler with an educational background in genetics. She is driven to help people who are struggling to find help in traditional care. After years of looking for the right functional whole body care, Linta noticed that specialized testing like gut tests were extremely expensive and hard to access. This is what drove her to build Vitract. Vitract exists to not only build gut testing that is superior and more sensitive than other gut tests but to also make gut testing far more accessible than it is today.
Samuel Olarewaju - Founder and Convener, Impact Leaders Connect
Samuel Olarewaju is passionate about empowering young leaders to discover their mountain of influence and become established in pursuing personal, community and global impacts. To this end, he founded Impact Leaders Connect (ILC) with the goal of bringing impact leaders globally together to learn, grow and network. Through ILC, Samuel has organized physical and virtual events that have impacted over 500 young people in more than 30 countries. Samuel's exceptional leadership qualities have been recognized through his participation as a President Student Leadership Program Fellow, One Young World ambassador, UNICEF Generation Unlimited Fellow, AstraZeneca Young Health Programme Scholar, and Unleash Accelerator Fellow, among other notable distinctions. These prestigious affiliations speak to his dedication to making a positive impact on society and his relentless pursuit of personal and collective growth.