UPG Biashara is an initiative that supports entrepreneurs in their journey to turn ideas into businesses. This includes growing and strengthening existing enterprises.
Biashara is a Kiswahili word for “business” and it emphasizes the fact that with this initiative UPG is supporting entrepreneurs and all those looking to create impact through business.
UPG Sustainability Leadership mobilises people and organisations to support positive citizen leadership on sustainability. The flagship activity involves the training of UPG Sustainability Leaders who are trained in partnership with the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership.
The trainings take place in separate cohorts and on Hurricane Island in Maine, where they spend 5 days learning and preparing for their mandate. Upon the conclusion of these trainings, UPG Sustainability Leaders conduct mini-training sessions in their cities and the undertake local projects. All this contributes to a ground swell of informed citizens taking positive action and demonstrating sustainability leadership.
Goodwill Vows is a platform that enables people and organisations to make a donation, now or in the future, to causes that they care about; a donation that is conditional on an event happening.
That conditional event could simply be the passage of time or it could be a conditional event that enables their donation. Goodwill Vows does not receive or handle any of the funds donated, the platform curates and supports the making and honouring of vows. With Goodwill Vows philanthropy is truly about generosity because everyone can make a vow.
UPG Learning Lab is a series of online lessons that teach skills, which are delivered with love and with the intention to help people to #maketheworldbetter. The focus is on practical knowledge that can make a difference immediately and touch people’s lives. The lessons are open, interactive, and free.
UPG Learning Lab Plus is a platform that offers transformative learning experiences for people who are obsessed with making the world better. These experiences are designed for those who are ready to move beyond awareness and to progress in the mastery of actionable expertise that makes the world a better place. Learning Lab Plus learners deserve the best experiences and the loving and caring support that helps them to achieve their learning objectives.
The COVID-19 Action Hub helps individuals and organisations to take positive action locally and globally related to COVID-19.
– Are you already taking action related to COVID-19?
– Or do you want to take action?
– Scale Up: Do you want to share or connect your actions, your expertise and your energy, so that we all have greater impact locally or globally?
Everyone can do something and we celebrate both small and big actions.
The Empowered People Index (EPI) ranks countries and territories in the world by how possible it is for an average citizen to determine their own future.
The “Youth Skills Gap” is a challenge facing many communities: high levels of youth unemployment in the same community where employers are having trouble finding talent to fill vacancies. Many of the opportunities ahead are related to a series of issues from “workplace readiness” to “leveraging technology.”
In collaboration with remarkable hosts, UPG is proud to support an effort to encourage the private sector to be more active in their communities about addressing this issue. And you can get involved too.
Wazee is a living library of life lessons shared by elders, from across the world, intended to guide and inspire others. Wazee is a Kiswahili word for Elders and these particular Elders have an obligation to pass on wisdom and knowledge to the next generation.
We are in conversations with our Members, Champions, and other stakeholders about promising initiatives that we can all support. Please do contact us if you have ideas for initiatives that you would like to see UPG support.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is a Nigerian techpreneur and investor. He is best known as a co- founder of multiple startup companies, including Flutterwave, Future Africa, Talent City and Andela. In 2015, Forbes listed him among the 30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs In Africa, and in 2019, New African featured him among the top 100 Most Influential Africans. He cofounded two successful startups in Africa before launching Flutterwave in 2017. With $15.7 million in funding, the payments company is empowering Pan-African merchants to execute business on global scale, processing $1.2 billion in transactions so far.
Aboyeji’s previous startup Andela, gained attention when the venture received $24 million in funding from Mark Zuckerberg. In 2016, he co-founded Flutterwave, an integrated platform for Africans to receive and make payments from anywhere. The fintech company was highly successful, establishing over 50 bank and multinational partners. In 2019, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji became a founding investor in Moove, a Nigerian fintech that provides revenue-based vehicle financing and financial services for mobility entrepreneurs globally. Around the same time, he became a founding investor in Talent City, now known as ITANA. The company helps tech and service-based businesses to access markets in Africa.
After co-founding Future Africa, Aboyeji served as the Deputy Director-General for Oby Ezekwesili’s 2019 presidential campaign. He is also the Co-founder and Chairman of the Talent City Inc, a construction company. On 11 October 2022, Aboyeji was conferred with National Honours Award of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by President Muhammadu Buhari. In November 2024, he was appointed with six others on the Nigeria’s 3MTT Advisory Committee organised by The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy to improve employability in the digital space in Nigeria.
Currently, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is a Managing Partner at Accelerate Africa, a company that invests in startups and early-stage SMEs in key sectors, such as agribusiness, technology and renewable energy. He is also a Founding Member of Future Africa, an innovation fund that provides capital, coaching, and community support to bold and visionary leaders.
Metta Kariyani Dewi is a UPG Sustainability Leader from Indonesia. Metta is a seasoned Senior Accountant with over seven years of experience in multinational corporations.
She specializes in managing complex accounting processes and delivering precise financial reports. Her expertise spans financial reporting, compliance, and internal controls, with a proven track record of enhancing reporting accuracy and reducing closing times.
Dewi excels in leveraging ERP systems to streamline operations and provide actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making. Beyond finance, she is deeply passionate about sustainability and climate change, integrating her commitment to environmental responsibility with financial integrity. Thriving in global environments, she actively connects with professionals who share her values while engaging in climate activism.
Suyashi Dwivedi is an entrepreneur and a public servant. She is a UPG Sustainability Leader from India. Suyashi currently serves as Associate Program Officer in the Department of Culture, Madhya Pradesh State Government. She is Chief Executive Officer at Saral Logistic Systems Private Limited. As part of this role, she started a green fuelling station in the Industrial area to fulfil the location’s needs sustainably.
She holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, a specialization in AI made her work towards new tech while at IIT Kanpur in C3I Lab, IIT Indore, BITS Pilani in Disruptive Technology Lab and MIT Momentum, Boston.
She worked in a Gaming company, MADIEE Games, where she got the opportunity to create her own game “SUSTAINATION” which was later presented in SDG Summit, 2023 at the UN Headquarters. She represented the voice of SDG in the 12th regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific, UNHRC, HESI Forum 2024, and UNY recently.
She was a scholar of the Marching J Scholarship, and she spent one academic year in Japan, 2019-20. Suyashi initiated the project ‘Free Pusthakalaaya’ with the goal of providing access to books and basic educational necessities to students and youth belonging to the middle and lower middle class residing in small towns and rural India. The project is being implemented at local level in every gram panchayat in Madhya Pradesh. Among SDGs, she fights against the inequality of opportunities, lack of information and lack of quality education and all efforts to reduce inequalities.
Professor Emeritus. Richmond, The American International University in London
Professor Dr. Wolfgang Deckers has 35 years teaching experience in a variety of institutes in the UK and abroad giving him an awareness of different education systems.
He teaches on an undergraduate level for a variety of Majors in a non-specialist way. Dr. Deckers emphasizes in his work the correlation between politics and economics on an international level. Dr. Deckers emphasizes the importance of students to enjoy their studies and to challenge their current perspectives and understanding of the world around them. He aims for students to feel motivated to engage on a significant level with the globalized world of which they are part. Dr. Deckers is interested and motivated to teach as a means to tackle injustice and education is a particularly powerful tool for this.
Dr. Deckers likes living in multicultural London and likes traveling to experience other lives.
Roberta da Silveira Moraes is a social entrepreneur from Curitiba, Brazil, with a degree in Law and an MBA in Sustainable Projects and Environmental Innovations (UFPR).
Her international background includes participation in Oxford SCENE – Sustainability, Climate and Environmental Education (University of Oxford) and the Max Thabiso Edkins Climate Ambassadors Program, an initiative of the World Bank and Connect4Climate.
As the Founder and President of the Global Youth Climate Alliance (GYCA) — a not-for- profit organization — Roberta created EDUCLIMA, GYCA’s flagship initiative that trains youth from the Global South in climate education and leadership. EDUCLIMA was incubated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in partnership with Instituto Legado, the German Government (BMZ), Bridge for Billions, and the City of Curitiba. The initiative was recognized with the Legado Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
Acknowledging her strong involvement in the climate agenda, she was among 24 young Brazilians nationally qualified for the role of Presidency Youth Climate Champion (PYCC) for COP30 in Brazil. Currently, Roberta proudly serves on the Board of Directors of United People Global (UPG), as the organization’s only Brazilian representative. She has also been a UPG Sustainability Leader since 2021.
Her mission is to strengthen impact-driven solutions that promote leadership, climate resilience and socio-environmental inclusion, both locally and globally.
Bio forthcoming.
Cherrie Atilano is a farmer who works to empower other farmers. She is the Founder and CEO of AGREA Agricultural Systems International, Inc., an agro-social enterprise that aims to help eradicate poverty for farming and fishing families in order to alleviate the effects of climate change and establish food security in the Philippines. AGREA has been mobilizing communities, businesses, academia, local and national governments, and international partners to bring an “Ecology of Dignity” to farming and fishing communities on the island of Marinduque.
Previously, she worked as a consultant with the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Philippines and helped to form 241 cooperatives of smallholder farmers in the country.
She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Inspiring Filipina Entrepreneur in 2017, The Outstanding Women in Nation’s Service Award in 2016, and first Awardee of Women of the Future Social Entrepreneur in SouthEast Asia, chosen as one of the ASEAN Emerging Leaders (ANGELS) by Channel News Asia and Visionary in Asia by Japan NHK World News.
Amadou Mahtar Ba is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of AllAfrica Global Media, Inc. AllAfrica owns and operates allafrica.com, an international multi-media content service provider, systems technology developer and the largest distributor of African news and information worldwide. He is also the Founder of the African Media Initiative (AMI), a pan-African effort he established and led until 2014 to provide the continent’s media owners and practitioners with the tools they need to play a stronger leadership role in their communities, countries and the region.
Prior to AllAfrica and AMI, Mr. Ba served as Director of Communications and Marketing for BICIS Bank, a subsidiary of the French banking group BNP Paribas and helped lead the successful restructuring and privatization of the Pan African News Agency (PANA).
Ba is a champion of the role of the media, good governance, women’s empowerment, technology and innovation and he has served on several international Boards and working groups. He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, Forbes listed him as one of “The Top 10 Most Powerful Men in Africa” in February 2014. EXPO 2015 and Afronline awarded Mr. Ba the 2012 African Media Prize acknowledging his “outstanding contribution to African Media and his skills on promoting innovation among African Media.”
Martin Chungong serves as the Secretary General of the Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU). He has more than three decades of experience and knowledge of parliaments at national and international level, Chungong has dedicated his professional life to promoting and building democracy worldwide. He contributed to establishing governance benchmarks to strengthen democracy, as chair of the Management Committee on Accountability of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Governance Network. Since 2012, Mr Chungong has made a push to strengthen parliamentary engagement on sustainable development and accountability through his role as Parliamentary Representative on the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation. An awardee of the Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Pléiade, Ordre de la Francophonie, and a linguist by training
Daisy Guo is the Co-founder and CMO of Tezign.com, a platform based creative marketplace & workflow solution.With a mission to revolutionize the relationship between clients and creative professionals, Tezign has brought together over 2,000 projects, from major clients such as land developer SOHO China, Greenland Group, and the film production company H.Brothers. Guo is an artist at heart and a graduate of China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, she holds a Bachelors in Landscape Architecture. She has curated art exhibits worldwide, including as part of the curating team for the Chinese pavilion at Venice Biennale 2012.
Juliette-Marie Somerset is currently the CEO & Managing Partner at Somerset Capital based in Silicon Valley, where she oversees global investments in disruptive technologies and serves actively on game-changing tech startups Boards and Advisory Councils. Her investment and venture capital career spans over two decades, including executive roles in New York City on Wall Street in investment banking and portfolio management.
Juliette-Marie Somerset is focusing on three tech sectors: ClimateTech, FinTech and AI. She is investing, advising and
mentoring innovative startups and fostering growth in cutting-edge industries. The professional network of Fintech women and her peers in New York City honored her at the NYSE as a leading female Fintech role-model and leader. She has been a guest lecturer in finance at Haas Business School based in Berkeley, California and a visiting lecturer in Blockchain Technology at ESCP Business School based in Berlin, Germany.
Juliette-Marie Somerset has spent the past decade as a mentor, advisor at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center based in San Francisco, Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale University (Tsai City) and Norrsken Impact Accelerator based in Stockholm, Sweden accelerating climate-tech solutions and partnering with global entrepreneurs. She has provided mentorship to environmentalists and innovators nominated for the prestigious The Earthshot Prize founded by Prince William, The Prince of Wales and the Royal Foundation.
She began championing the international rights and protection of children as a UNICEF volunteer in New York City nearly 30 years ago. Sustainable global impact and advancing gender equality are her professional and personal North Star. Juliette-Marie Somerset speaks regularly at International Women’s Day global events and How Women Lead board mentorship and networking conferences. She was educated at Yale University, Columbia University in New York City and All Souls College in England.