Micheal Ige 

Moderator

Micheal is passionate about developing youth interests and involvement particularly in economic development and   has spent the past 10 years organizing youth and women towards active participation in national/international economic development. Micheal most recently worked with the United Nations Population Fund as the Programme Manager for the Youth Leaders (YoLe) Fellowship Programme, in Ghana. YoLe is fully dedicated to youth skills development and engagement. Under Micheal’s leadership, 122 Fellows have received structured skills training, and over 100,000 youth have been engaged in various outreach projects over the course of 5 years.

Samantha Kumalo

Head of Sales, DHL Global Forwarding Zimbabwe
Certified Go Trade Facilitator

Highly experienced sales professional with 9 years of expertise in the freight industry, specializing in logistics solutions for diverse cargo types, including general cargo, dangerous goods, cold chain, oversized cargo, and customs clearing.

Kainos Muswinu

Head of Field Office (HoFO) for the World Food Program (WFP)

Kainos has more than 20+ years’ experience working for international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) most of which has been spent working closely with youth and smallholder livestock farmers. 

Currently, Kainos is the Head of Field Office (HoFO) for the World Food Program (WFP), based in Bulawayo. He is responsible for coordinating WFP programs in Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South. 

Gilbert Gumpo

Farmer

Gilbert Gumpo (GG) is both an intuitive farmer and a research-based farming entrepreneur who has grown to believe that food is medicine and therefore what and how we grow food for human and animal consumption is fundamental to mankind. GG respects traditional farming practices and precision farming, believes young people are key to present and future farming given fast paced knowledge and information, driven by AI and that the young farmers are key to future generations.

He believes farming is a livelihood, fun, therapy and that Africans can feed themselves. GG has no formal education in any of the farming disciplines, but he is comfortable with plant life and animal life, presently he is a feedlot farmer on 2 ha where he grows his own feed and buys finishing steers as his retirement pension and a legacy for his kindred.

Dr Nqobizitha Dube

Consultant, Project Manager, and Writer in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

An economist with keen interest in environmental management, Climate change management, livelihoods and ecosystem services management. Research, evaluations and data management occupy his professional time.