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The U.S. State Department's Mandela Washington Fellowship, started in 2014 as part of the Young African Leaders Initiative created by President Obama, empowers young people from Sub-Saharan Africa through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking. This year the Fellowship is providing 700 young ambassadors with the opportunity to hone their skills at U.S. higher education institutions. The Iowa delegation of Fellows will spend six weeks in Iowa taking entrepreneurial classes and touring the state.

Luana holds a degree in public relations and advertisements from the University of Istanbul. She currently works at Tiniguena, an NGO in Guinea-Bissau that works with biodiversity, where she assists with communication, youth, and civic duty. She hopes to start her own company and run it with the values of environment and sustainable development at its core.

Charles, CEO of "Akili Labs," is currently completing a Masters of Science in Biotechnology from Rhodes University. Through his research on removal of toxic metals from waste water, he recognized the lack of medical diagnostics, which causes 12 million deaths annually in Africa. In response he built "Lab in Box", which can perform medical diagnostics in the field.

Saeed founded "The Smile Shop Dental Clinics" to improve access to quality dental care in rural and urban communities. To make dental healthcare more affordable, he introduced an innovative dental savings plan. Saeed is currently working on adapting his current model for rural communities, where people can exchange farm produce or livestock. to pay for care.

Awa holds a Master's Degree in Telecommunications Engineering from Telecom SudParis. After working in France and Senegal, she founded the Lifantou project in 2016, which uses crowd-sourced geospatial data to link farmers with school canteens. Her goal is to secure food for public school children, reinforce food distribution, and boost the agriculture sector.

For more information on the Foreign Relations Council visit their website at www.icfrc.org.