ATLANTA — Two young business leaders from Niger recently completed a month-long experience at the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2).
Nadia Yerima Bako and Adama Boubacar Oumarou spent much of August participating in the Mandela Washington Fellowship’s Professional Development Experience (PDE), an executive-level program, offered in person and remotely, that builds entrepreneurial skills and fosters cultural exchange.
Bako and Oumarou are among the more than 600 Fellows who participated in the 2025 cohort. The group comprises people ages 25-35 with five to seven years of professional experience from more than 40 different African countries.
Prior to embarking on their PDEs at Georgia Tech, the two women completed a six-week Leadership Institute training at Syracuse University, in Syracuse, New York, and University of Nevada, Reno, respectively.
In Niger, Bako leads an economic growth project that empowers entrepreneurs through incubation and capacity building. She aims to mobilize these structures and create a network of community leaders to improve efficiency in education, healthcare infrastructure, and opportunities for women. During her time at Georgia Tech, she collaborated with the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Enterprise Innovation Institute Global (EI2 Global), and EI2’s Community-based Engagement group to advance the strategic direction of the project she plans to implement back home, an innovation hub called MuGirma.
Being in the U.S. gave her a new perspective on the power of resourceful networks. “I’m amazed by how entrepreneurial Americans are,” Bako said. “In Atlanta, it is easy to get the support you need when you want to open a business, as opposed to Niger, where systemic bottlenecks block the entrepreneurial ecosystem from growing. [Here] there are systems and structures to help the community. I chose Georgia Tech because it aligns with MuGirma.”
Oumarou is a business developer and consultant at Women in Nexus, a company that provides technology, mediation, leadership, and entrepreneurship training for women and young people in Niger. She is also the co-founder of Cellule Nigérienne des Jeunes Filles Leaders (Nigerien Cell of Yong Women Leaders), which supports girls and women through programs focusing on leadership, entrepreneurship, and career development.
Georgia Tech and EI2 were also ideally suited to Oumarou’s PDE goals, which included learning about social enterprise development, training module design, business strategy, and ways to boost social impact through data and technology.
“Georgia Tech does exactly what I’m doing, empowering communities to leadership, entrepreneurship, and digital literacy,” she said, citing the Partnership for Innovation (PIN) as a program that especially inspired her for the impact it makes through mobilizing young people.
Oumarou noted that some of the challenges she’d encountered in the past have had less to do with a particular endeavor’s vision or mission and more to do with navigating issues of structure and procedure.
“Learning the process of assessing the need and then doing the ecosystem mapping was a very helpful approach I have learned here, and I plan to duplicate it in my work,” she said, adding that the contacts she made at EI2 formed “the network that I’m going to leverage to continue with my project.”
EI2 Associate Vice President of Community-based Engagement Programs Donna Ennis was delighted to host the Fellows and help further their initiatives.
“It was great to be able to collaborate across continents, as well as a pleasure and privilege to gather EI2’s and Georgia Tech’s ample resources for the Fellows to implement in their projects back home in Niger,” Ennis said.
The benefits of the Mandela Washington Fellowship program flowed in both directions, with EI2 gaining inspiration and new reference points from Bako and Oumarou.
Juli Golemi, director of EI2 Global, also served as a host to the two Fellows. As she put it, “The Mandela Fellows brought fresh perspectives and invaluable experiences to EI2. Nadia and Adama’s leadership in advancing entrepreneurship education in Niger showed us how innovation can improve people’s lives and create lasting impact through more inclusive and resilient communities.”