Issa Diabaté, Managing Director of the Koffi & Diabaté Architectes Office

Issa Diabaté is the Managing Director of the Koffi & Diabaté Architectes office (founded in 2001 with Guillaume Koffi) and co-founder of Koffi & Diabaté Group (Specialized in Architecture, Real Estate Development and Construction). He is a Master in Architecture graduate from Yale University. Previous architecture internships include: Goly Kouassi, Devrouax and Purnell and Jean Nouvel et Cattani, SAU Guillaume Koffi.

Very much involved on the topic of African urban issues, over the years, Issa Diabaté has participated in a number of local change-geared initiatives, addressing context-oriented problems (through projects and the mentoring of young architects, namely). As an architect practicing on the continent, he aims to shed light on both the issues at hand and on those creative solutions required to build (now) the African City of Tomorrow. Issa Diabaté has participated as speaker, sharing on these issues at the following conference events: “Other Desires” at Columbia University, New York, 2016; African Leadership Network, Kigali, 2014; Design INDABA, Cape Town, 2014; Afritekture, Munich, 2013; Ted Talk, Arusha, 2007.

A Member of Côte d’Ivoire’s Order of Architects with whom he initiated Côte d’Ivoire’s first Architecture and Building Fair, ARCHIBAT in 2007, Issa Diabaté also evolves in the design world and is a laureate of Senegal’s DAK’ART Contemporary Art Biennale (1998). Most recently, he participated in the exhibitions ABIDJANOW 2013 (Salon ARCHIBAT -Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire) and DESIGN INDABA 2014 & 2017 (Cape Town, South Africa). In 2019, he collaborated with the Swedish group IKEA for their first collection by African designers : “OVERALLT”. For his work and contributions to his field and to the nation of Côte d’Ivoire, Issa Diabaté has been appointed Knight of the Order of Cultural Merit.

Koffi & Diabaté’s works have been presented, internationally, at the Triennale di Milano and at the Louisiana Museum of Denmark.

Jon Vandenheuvel, Senior Advisor for Africa for the Charter Cities Institute

Jon Vandenheuvel is Senior Advisor for Africa for the Charter Cities Institute. He is also CEO of Small Farm Cities Africa, an investor-operator of new agribusiness towns and subdivisions. Most recently, Jon was Executive Director for Africa E-Commerce for Dubai Ports World (DP World) and is currently an advisor to the National Planning Commission of Malawi, part of the secondary cities research group. Jon has been private sector advisor for e-Commerce for Africa for the Universal Postal Union in Ethiopia and has organized infrastructure and research initiatives in Somalia, Kenya, and Nigeria. He co-founded a laboratory farm on the shores of Lake Volta in Ghana and co-authored a book based on the lab, Africa Risk Dashboard. He has served as a visiting scholar for African urbanism at MIT's Center for Advanced Urbanism. Earlier in his career, Jon served as a staff director for the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. Jon is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Johanessburg, writing on Somalia's protracted conflict, and holds a masters from Johns Hopkins University, and bachelors from Wheaton College (IL).

Miriam M Maina, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium

Miriam M. Maina is a town planner, urban researcher, GIS and data analytics consultant, and co-founder at OneCity. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the African Cities Research Consortium at the University of Manchester.

Her work focuses on the use of social and geospatial data, analytics, illustration, and story-telling to document and analyze urban growth and development in support of policymaking in African towns and cities. Using maps, data stories, art, and analytics, Miriam analyzes and documents: urban growth; the intentions, actions, and outcomes of public sector plans, policies, and investments; and the coordination of multi-stakeholder investment in pursuit of equitable urban development. 

Miriam's research focus is on housing, informal settlement upgrading, neighborhood development, urban space economies, social and community development, and local-government spatial planning policy and implementation.

Miriam has also worked as a research fellow at the NRF Chair in Spatial Analysis & City Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, a research manager at the Centre for Affordable Housing in Africa (CAHF) in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at the Centre for Urban Innovations at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. 

Ndifreke Ikokpu, Co-founder/COO of HouseAfrica

Ndifreke Ikokpu is currently, the co-founder and Chief Operation Officer of HouseAfrica, a Nigerian-based real estate tech startup leveraging blockchain and modern geospatial capabilities to build a modern digital land and property registry that enables owners and other third parties to access, verify and value properties effortlessly. The Digital registry for privately owned lands and properties helps reduce fraud and increase access to mortgages for homebuyers.

Before co-founding HouseAfrica in late 2019, Ndifreke co-founded Bitpaya, a cross-border remittance solution to help Africans in the diaspora send money back home at a minimal fee, in 2017.
His journey into tech started in mid-2002, by learning how to design and build websites. After his university education, he worked briefly with a multinational Bank in Nigeria and a real estate company.  

Tesi Rusagara, Managing Director of Kigali Innovation City

​Tesi Muragara is the Managing Director of Kigali Innovation City, whose mission is to nurture and accelerate Rwanda's innovation ecosystem to position Rwanda as a pan-African hub. She was previously with Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco advising financial services clients on digital transformation, growth strategy and divestitures. Tesi has also worked in the President of Rwanda’s Strategy and Policy Unit and for Bank of Kigali, Rwanda’s largest commercial bank. Tesi holds an Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Business Science in Finance from the University of Cape Town.