Jessica Posner

Jessica Posner Odede is the Chief Operating Officer & Co-founder of Shining Hope for Communities, an innovative non-profit that combats extreme poverty and gender inequality. This year SHOFCO will serve over 76,000 beneficiaries and is spreading across Kenya's urban slums with a model that links free schools for girls to holistic community services for all, making the school a portal for large-scale social change. Jessica is a nationally recognized social entrepreneur and activist. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors from Wesleyan University, and is the youngest alumnae to receive the institution's "Distinguished Alumni Award." She won the 2010 Do Something Award and was named "America's top-world changer 25 and under," and received the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship. Jess speaks Swahili, and is the first known outsider to live for an extended period of time in the Kibera slum. Her work has been featured by President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton on NBC, and on five occasions by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times and in his book and documentary series "A Path Appears." She wrote her new book with her partner and husband, Kennedy Odede, called Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum.