AWiB Meri Program Award Ceremony

The award ceremony took place on December 22, 2022, at the Hilton Hotel, where mentors were recognized for their unwavering dedication and coaching efforts toward their mentees throughout the year, ultimately achieving the program’s objectives. Our CEO, Kidist, was among the mentors who received the Meri Award at the ceremony.

Meri is a leadership and mentorship program that aims to provide critical leadership and employability skills training to young female senior university students/new graduates through soft skills and job readiness training, with the intention of tackling youth employment. The graduates of this program will serve as ambassadors whilst echoing the message of developing young professional leaders in Ethiopia.

The objective of the Meri program is designed to introduce and match recent female university graduates with experienced Ethiopian career and businesswomen, complemented by a leadership development program that is twelve weeks long and an annual forum, Meri Medrek, aimed at building a growing network of mentees and mentors.

Kidist Gebreamlak is the Co-founder & CEO of Zero-One-Zero-One PLC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; A consulting, designing, training, and implementing company working on Digital Skills and Business Development, with a vision of cultivating an innovative and competent 21^st-century workforce and thriving businesses led by the youth & women. She is also the Senior Center Manager of the Center for Innovative Drug Development and Therapeutic Trials for Africa (CDT Africa), Addis Ababa. Kidist served as the Board President and CEO of STEMpower Inc, USA, where she led results-driven, thriving projects across Africa. She held Consulting and Program Support positions at the World Bank Group, HQ, DC, USA. Kidist is strategic, and empathic and thrives on projects requiring diverse cultural, social, economic, and political knowledgeability.  She is a passionate believer in the untapped potential of African youth and women as creative agents of change to realize the Africa We Want. To that end, Kidist resettled in Ethiopia to do her part towards the inevitable thriving of the continent and its people.