Ambulah Mamey, a Liberian student specializing in Agricultural Development and Environment at American University, Washington D.C, has won the 2018/2019 Kirchner Food Fellowship–the world’s most prestigious and innovative capital investment training program in the food and agriculture sector.
The program is led by renowned individuals including the President and CEO of the Noble Research Institute, the immediate past president of Mexico, Vincente Foxx, and former secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama.
A press release says Mr. Mamey was selected along with Emery Brown of Tuffs University and Charles Higgenbotham of Cornell University.
He and the other fellows will be inaugurated as Kirchner Food Fellowship at the Nobel Institute on the 24th of August. Mamey’s selection makes him the second African and the first Liberian to be enlisted as a Kirchner Food Fellow. Faridah O. Ibrahim of Nigeria and Columbia University is the first African to be enlisted as a Kirchner Food Fellow.
According to the Kirchner Food Fellowship, the 2018/2019 Fellows were selected of several other applicants from universities in America, Mexico, and Canada because of their outstanding academic performance, proven leadership capabilities, foundational and/or mid-level entrepreneurial knowledge, as well as their passion and demonstrated commitment to working in the Agricultural sector to address global food insecurity and poverty.
The Fellowship which will last for one year will provide routine high-level practical and hands-on training in Low-cost High Impact agricultural investment strategies. The training will be provided by mentors and a network of renowned and successful investors from across North America.
The mentors and investors will provide resources to the fellows that increase their understanding of strategies to deliver financial and other services as well as technologies to smallholder farmers and other downstream actors in agricultural value chain.
At the end of the training, the fellows will be given access to a maximum of US 50,000.00 to identify and fund an emerging or early-stage agribusiness. The 50,000.00, according to the Kirchner Group, is intended to test the fellows’ abilities in making investment decision using the Low-cost High impact investment module.
Mamey reacted to his selection with excitement, and an expression of an intention to draw benefits that go beyond the knowledge and exposure he will acquire in Agricultural Investment.
“I am super excited and looking forward to maximizing all the direct and potential indirect opportunities the program offers”, he commented.
“My foremost priority is the training and exposure in agricultural investment; but also important is to me is building and maintaining a network beyond the Fellowship, strengthening ties with the other Fellows, the Kirchner Group which is renowned for investing in the Agriculture sector, and the team of Trainers and mentors.
The Kirchner Food Fellowship, is a unique and innovative impact investment program that prepares millennials to find, fund and assist promising socially responsible agricultural businesses.
The Fellowship provides capital and extraordinary hands-on training in capital allocation for university students. The Fellowship also applies a problem-based learning and solutions approach to investment with the goal of enhancing capital efficiency, lessening deployment costs, shortening time frames and increasing the likelihood of investment success.