January 19, 2016
We all want to change the world. Jon O’ Sullivan is finding his own way doing so through raising awareness and empowering victims of domestic violence globally. He opens up about his work, his professional growth and journey of self discovery through his Social Innovation Management training with Amani Institute in Kenya 2015.
This is a guest blog written by our Alumni Jon O’Sullivan over at our Medium blog.
It is difficult to fully articulate the lessons I learnt as an Amani Fellow and my experience in Kenya may differ greatly from the experience had by my former Fellows. If there was, however, one way to describe my time, it would be that you get out of it exactly what you put in. I treated my 5 months in Kenya as an unprecedented opportunity to discover myself, break down my personal assumptions, identify my motivational factors to create change and also to work my proverbial ass off in making my internship and individual project a success.
I was lucky enough to work with Growth Africa, in between my classes, on their SPRING Accelerator Initiative. It supports businesses whose products and services transform the lives of adolescent girls living in poverty. Working with Growth Africa got me firsthand experience with entrepreneurs working to empower women with user-centered design and a gendered analysis of the market. My past experience in the private sector also enabled me to do consultancy work for foreign firms. These firms primarily focused on market entry strategies, regulatory structure barriers, business modelling, market analysis, risk assessment and competitive analysis for the a variety of sectors in East Africa. Furthermore, I gained invaluable access to networks and contacts that might be beneficial in collecting research information or forming strategic partnerships in the future. Read more about Jon’s journey here.
