GPI Fellows Announcement
In March this year, the GPI announced its first Fellowship program. The 24-month program places fellows in impact-driven businesses in Tanzania. We aim to provide hands-on experience in contributing to sustainable economic growth by addressing real-world challenges at the coalface of development.
We were delighted with the number and quality of candidates for this year’s program and are very excited to announce our first two GPI Fellows, who will start their work in Tanzania next month. The chosen fellows, each bringing a range of skills and experiences, are set to play an integral role in supporting the operations and growth of these businesses.
In this post we tell you a little bit about our inaugural fellows and what they will be doing in Tanzania over the next two years.
Giuseppe Carminati
Giuseppe Carminati holds a Master’s in quantitative finance and risk management from Bocconi University. He previously earned a MSc in solid-state and semiconductor Physics at University of Milano-Bicocca, with a thesis about the growth of quantum dots for telecommunication applications. He later worked as an R&D Engineer at Vishay Intertechnology, where he joined the power electronics R&D team. Giuseppe enjoys staying informed on economics, playing the bagpipes, trekking, and learning new languages.
Giuseppe will be joining Dark Earth Carbon, a company on a mission to industrialise carbon removals to reverse climate change. Dark Earth Carbon takes residues from the timber and agricultural sectors in Tanzania and subjects them to a process of pyrolisation to create ‘biochar’, a highly stable form of almost pure fixed carbon. This biochar not only sequesters carbon for 1000s of years but, when applied to soil increases organic matter and water holding capacity, combats soil acidity, and overall improves yields – something which is desperately needed across Tanzania’s agricultural-dependent economy.
Giuseppe will join Dark Earth Carbon as a Site Manager at their new facility in Western Tanzania. This 3T per hour factory in one of Tanzania’s poorest regions will create over 100 jobs, sequester over 15,000T of CO2e per year, and provide much needed organic fertiliser for over 4,000 smallholder farmers.
Annemarie Vogelberg
Annemarie is German-British and has just completed her MSc in Development Management, specialising in African Development, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She previously studied social and political sciences for her undergraduate in France and Germany. She brings on the ground development experience from working for a political foundation connecting various socio-political stakeholders in Ghana. Annemarie enjoys moving to new countries and meeting people from all spheres of life and backgrounds. She is passionate about bringing individuals and ideas together and forming sustainable partnerships between Europe and Africa.
Annemarie will be working with a consortium of high impact companies, including Upendo Honey, East Africa’s leading organic honey company; Tanganyika Blue, who are pioneering Native Species Aquaculture in the world’s most important topical lake; Dark Earth Carbon, Giuseppe’s soon to be home for two years; and Halisi Agri, a company bringing transparency and environmental sustainability to Tanzania’s sesame industry through higher farmgate prices and a focus on organic agriculture. Annemarie will help these companies professionalise their business services, as well as mainstream their impact reporting.
Creating impact is only sometimes about breakthrough technology or revolutionary business models. But it is always about getting the basics right and making sure there is paper in the printer. It is the prosaic work of systems and procedures that delivers the poetry of impact and improved livelihoods. Annemarie’s work will turbo charge these high impact companies by ensuring services are delivered effectively and organisations are built to have a foundation for scale.
We look forward to welcoming them to Tanzania in September and can’t wait to see how Giuseppe and Annemarie adapt to their new roles and new environments.