Kgomotso Phatsima
We are pleased to announce the first keynote for CompEd 2025. Captain Kgomotso Phatsima is among the first female military pilots in the Botswana Defence Force. She is a social entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of Dare to Dream. In her work, she focusses on inspiring young people – particularly girls – into STEAME and Aviation careers across the African continent. Phatsima is the Author of “Born To Fly – The Story of a Female Military Pilot Rising in Africa”. We are excited to welcome an inspiring speaker with many international accolades who has a message for attendees from the African continent and also for those coming from other parts of the globe.
Kgomotso Phatsima is a social entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of Dare To Dream. Captain Kgomotso Phatsima is among the first female military pilots in the Botswana Defence Force. She holds a Commercial Pilot Licence from the Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana. Phatsima is the CNN African Voices Changemaker 2021. She is the 80th British High Commission Commonwealth Point of Light Award Winner. Kgomotso Phatsima was chosen by the 44th President of the United States of America Barack Obama as one of the exceptional young emerging brilliant leaders changing the narrative of our communities, our countries and the African Continent. She is an alumni of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) USA. Phatsima is the Author of “Born To Fly – The Story of a Female Military Pilot Rising in Africa” .
She holds a Master of Science in Strategic Management with a focus on Aviation Safety from the University of Derby and Diamond Foundation Course certificate from DeBeers Institute of Diamonds. She is the Alumni of The Duke of Edinburgh Commonwealth Global Leaders Program- Canada 2023.
Jelani Nelson
Jelani Nelson is Professor and Department Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, and also a part-time Research Scientist at Google. His research interests include sketching and streaming algorithms, random projections and their applications to randomized linear algebra and compressed sensing, and differential privacy. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and Best Paper Awards at the ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems in both 2010 and 2022. He is also Founder and President of AddisCoder, Inc., which has provided free algorithms training to Ethiopian high school students since 2011, and to Jamaican students since Summer 2022.