Sena Agbodjah​

My Role: Co-Principal Investigator from April 2023 to Date.

• Instrumental in co-creation conversations with the funder to arrive at an overall program strategy.
  
  
• Co-led the development of Ashesi University’s strategy for the initiative in alignment with the university’s strategic objectives and that of the larger health collaborative.
  
  
• Responsible for driving the systematic review of the health ecosystem in Ghana, the development of the business incubator, and supporting program management.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: understanding of the health ecosystem, its gaps, existing interventions, and potential enhancements; program management skills; honing communication skills to gain endorsement by the university’s boards.

My Role: Content Lead from February 2022 to Date.

• Co-led program strategy development and proposal development for the E-Learning Initiative while seeking Executive and Board approval for project implementation.
  
  
• Responsible for programmatic activities including the development, evaluation, and management of the program schedule, financials, risks, personnel, learning, and evaluation, among others.
  
  
• Responsible for content design, development, instructional design, and content team formation.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: managing complex projects, instructional design, contextually relevant content development and design, team building and management skills, and communication skills.

(Research and Institutional Capacity Strengthening to Prevent and Manage Non-Communicable Diseases (StopNCD) in Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso.)

My Role: Researcher and Community Engagement Lead from October 2022 to Date.

• Support technical and financial proposal development.
  
  
• Serving on the Community Engagement Committee and involved in a systematic review of NCD prevention and maintenance, while exploring existing projects in innovation and systemic change.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: Systematic review processes and techniques, understanding the NCD landscape across three countries: Ghana, Mali, and Burkina Faso, communication across Anglophone and Francophone Africa, managing teams across multiple countries, building effective teams.

(Education Collaborative’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem’s Project, The Education Collaborative.)

My Role: Project Lead from August 2021 to December 2023

• Project conceptualization and alignment with the strategic goals of the Education Collaborative.
  
  
• Developing and managing the project implementation process, plan, risks, and budget, while building the project team.
  
  
• Lead researcher for a desk study to develop a framework for higher educational institutions in designing, developing, and diagnosing their entrepreneurship ecosystems in a bid to develop active entrepreneurship ecosystems to aid in developing an entrepreneurial mindset, and drive research and development to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in these institutions.
  
  
• Managing stakeholders from about 45 African universities across the sub-Saharan African Regions, along with a staff size of about 8 project team members.
  
  
• Disseminated findings to inform institutional-level entrepreneurship strategy development while driving them towards active entrepreneurship ecosystems, and through other outlets.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: working across time zones, program conceptualization skills, process distillation competencies, cross-country project management, communication skills, and program management competencies.

The Berekuso Impact Study is a household survey administered every three years in Berekuso using area sampling and a repeated cross-sectional design. The purpose of the survey is to generate a time-series dataset for multidisciplinary research on the demographic and socio-economic factors of change as Berekuso transitions from a rural agrarian settlement to an urban suburb of Greater Accra.

A methodology pilot was conducted in 2014 and a more comprehensive household survey administered in 2017. The 2017 survey includes demographic questions, questions about dwelling characteristics and household assets, education, sanitation, childhood health, safety, mobile phone use and digital finance, and perceptions of Ashesi University, among others.

In order to continue with data collection at three-year intervals, the next round of the Berekuso household survey will take place in February 2020.

My Role: Co-Lead

• Conceptualizing and developing a methodology to collect data about Ashesi’s impact within the Berekuso community while building a database of dwelling, household, and individual characteristics to aid in developmental strategy development, teaching, and further research.
  
  
• Survey design/ update, sample selection, survey data collection, data analysis, focus group discussions, dissemination events, community engagement, schedule, and budget management.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: community-based research, surveys, community engagement, stakeholder management, dissemination event facilitation.

My Role: Academic Strategy and Curriculum Development Consultant from May 2018 – December 2020

• Working with the African Development University, Niamey, Niger, to repurpose and restructure their academic offerings and structure; recruiting faculty and faculty development to revamp the University’s academic department. Serving and delivering on the responsibilities of a Provost while the University worked to recruit a Provost. March to December 2020.
• Developed a framework for course re-design and new course development for core- and co-curricular activities and training stakeholders on these. June 2019.
  
  
• Worked with a team of faculty, students, and staff to co-develop a two-year extended capstone option for students enrolled at the Palm Institute, Kordeabe, Ghana. February – July 2019.
  
  
• Worked with the Palm Institute, Kordeabe, a startup university, to strategize and develop their academic structure, organizational structuring, and educational offerings. May 2018 – February 2019.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: academic programme development, academic strategy development, curriculum/ program design, working across multiple countries.

My Role: Faculty Lead

• Led a team of faculty members to reimagine entrepreneurship education at Ashesi University using the ecosystem approach.
  
  
• Designed and institutionalized an entrepreneurship ecosystem for Ashesi and assisted in developing its components: courses, co-curricular activities, and organizations, promoting an entrepreneurial culture on campus, finding markets, and aligning these with the overall strategy of Ashesi.
  
  
• Establish and manage the Ashesi Enterprise Fund.
  
  
• Raise funds to support an annual entrepreneurship education and training budget of USD20,000.00 on campus, while driving the conceptualization and development of entrepreneurship programming.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: entrepreneurship ecosystem development, fundraising activities, engaging stakeholders, communications, and entrepreneurship co- and extra-curricular activity development.

Ashesi University was a consortium member with Solidaridad West Africa as the Consortium Lead.

My Role: Project Lead from October 2015 to December 2020

• Working with the Solidaridad team to conceptualize and develop the Next Generation Cocoa Youth Programme in alignment with the strategy and values of all partners.
  
  
• Conceptualize, design, develop and implement the MASO Business Academy covering both the training and incubation of over 1000 rural youth who set up over 400 community businesses.
  
  
• Responsible for program management including schedule, budget, risk, and stakeholder management within over 40 communities across 5 regions in Ghana.
  
  
• Responsible for developing an entrepreneurial training and incubation curriculum for the Academy while managing a curriculum development team of 6 members, a research team of 4 members, and a project management team of 3 members.
  
  
• Skills/Competencies/Knowledge developed and honed: management of community-level research and intervention deployment, multi-stakeholder management, communication, rural enterprise development, team building and management, and funder reporting.