Odero Otieno
| Odero Otieno | |
|---|---|
| File:Odero Otieno speaking at Next Canada headquarters in Toronto, Canada.jpg Odero in Toronto in October 2018 | |
| Born | |
| 🏳️ Nationality | Kenyan |
| 🏫 Education | |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 🌐 Website | dawaswift |
Odero Otieno (born Odero Peter Otieno, October 11, 1995) is a Kenyan entrepreneur, investor and computer engineer who is the Co-Founder and CEO of DawaSwift.[1]. He is often invited to speak at entrepreneurship conferences globally, notably the 2019 AFS Global Global Conference in Montreal, Canada.
Otieno is a Gerald W. Schwartz and Heather Reisman Global Scholar and a Mastercard Foundation Global Scholar at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is a 2018 Clinton Global Initiative University Fellow and a 2019 NSERC CREATE DAV Research Scholar in Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Early life[edit]
Otieno grew up in rural Homa Bay County where he attended Kirongo Primary School. He appeared in the list of top 100 students in the former Nyanza Province in the 2008 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE), earning him admission to the Lenana School in February 2009, located in Nairobi in Karen, Kenya. After graduating from high school, he volunteered as the founding principal of St.Mary's Kachar Girls Secondary School in February 2013 before winning a Mastercard Foundation scholarship to study at McGill University in Montreal,Canada in March 2016.
Education[edit]
Otieno completed his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education at Lenana School in 2012, graduating the following year in March and emerging as one of the top students nationally[2]. Afterward he went to Moi University to pursue a degree electrical and electronics engineering. However due to financial challenges, he dropped out. In March 2016, Otieno won an over $300,000 Mastercard Foundation Scholarship to further his education at McGill University[3], where he is pursuing two engineering degrees: a B.Eng in Computer Engineering and a B.Eng in Technological Entrepreneurship.
In October 2018, Otieno started his Mini-MBA Program at the Next Canada Entrepreneurship Institute at the University of Toronto. He also attended the Ryerson University Entrepreneurship Program in Toronto in 2019.
Career[edit]
At age 17, Otieno volunteered as the founding co-principal of the community-based St. Mary's Kachar Girls Secondary School in rural Homa Bay County of Kenya before he joined Moi University for a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. Due to financial challenges, he dropped out.
In January 2014, he founded a barbershop and later on KenCash Financial Agencies which was a mobile money and bank agency company just outside Kabianga University in Kericho County, Kenya.
He has been a Software Engineering Intern at Kenya Airways (Nairobi, Kenya) and a Google Code-U Software Engineering Intern (Mountain View, California). His entrepreneurial journey has been catalyzed by recognition and support from the Faculty of Engineering at McGill University.
He was a McGill University Delegate at the Conference on Diversity in Engineering (CDE), Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES), Canadian Undergraduate Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC). In March 2018, he was selected alongside 6 other McGill University students to visit startups in Tel Aviv, Beersheba, and Jerusalem. In March 2019, alongside Joseph Olayemi and William Nippard, Otieno co-founded DawaSwift[4] a mobile money & data science company that seeks to make on-demand deliveries of medicines to patients' homes and give in-app microloans to patients in emerging markets globally.[5]
Honors and awards[edit]
Otieno is a recipient of several awards and honors including the Next Canada's Next 36 Program for Canada's Top 36 Young Entrepreneurs in 2019, the over $300,000 Mastercard Foundation Scholarship at McGill University] in March 2016, the Jim and Barbara Brodeur Innovation Award for Innovation in Engineering (awarded by at McGill University in April 2019) and the 2018 McLachlin Prize for Entrepreneurship in Engineering.
References[edit]
External links[edit]
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