Eliud is a global development and digital enthusiast, and a youth champion with years of extensive experience working with development organizations and innovation hubs to design programmes and services that provide marginalized groups including women and youth with Knowledge, Access and Choice! He is driven by a strong passion for innovation and design and a firm belief in the power of entrepreneurship and technology as approaches to development. With a background in Financial Engineering and digital transformation, Eliud believes economic empowerment begins with Financial Inclusion and that technology can be leveraged as a net force for good. He therefore endeavors to thoughtfully co-design and responsibly deliver digital products that include disenfranchised groups into global commerce and finance systems while ensuring they have the appropriate capacity and technology to access them.

At Think Place,  Eliud has worked on several projects including an internet connectivity project that generated insights and policy recommendations on internet connectivity in hard-to-reach communities in Rwanda, Malawi and Zambia and proposed high speed internet use cases for governments in Africa as well as an education project that leveraged the principles of human-centered design to design and implement low-cost and scalable education micro-innovations that will inform and transform education systems to improve holistic learning outcomes for the most marginalized learners in Kenya and Tanzania.

Previously, Eliud designed and implemented SBC programs linked to the global SDGs at Unilever’s Heroes for Change where he worked with county governments in Kenya to implement social behavior change programs in schools across the country. He also led digitalization and data strategy for MSMEs at Centafrique Consulting where he got to work on a digital upskilling platform that converts Africa’s growing youth population into a productive workforce by helping them to learn digital skills and explore unconventional jobs in the digital and creative economies.  Additionally, Eliud has co-founded Innobid Procurement – a civic tech startup leveraging AI and ML to enable traditionally excluded women and youth-owned SMEs to access global commerce and procurement opportunities through process simplification, providing relevant information and fostering transparency

These work experiences have helped Eliud sharpen his technical expertise in innovation and design and develop key people skills in leadership, collaboration, storytelling, and networking. He has also gained invaluable experience working with governments, business community, academia, civil society, funders, and local communities.

Eliud holds a BSc Degree in Financial Engineering and is currently pursuing a Mastering Service Design Course from the Service Design College. He is a winner of the Accountability Lab’s inaugural HackCorruption Hackathon held in South Africa in July 2022. HackCorruption is a Tech4Good event that aims to bring people together to co-create anti-corruption solutions that can be used by governments or civil society with the goal of stimulating the innovative application of technology to address accountability gaps and build systemic integrity. Eliud has been recognized by the UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth as a Youth Leader for his work of promoting social innovation for the Youth in Africa. He has also been recognized by the National Democratic Institute, the International Trade Center and the Accountability Lab for leveraging technology for good!