Meet our iamtheCODE Team

Lady Mariéme Jamme

Founder

Lady Mariéme Jamme is a Senegalese-born, French- British businesswoman, with over 20 years of experience. A pioneer in System Change and Technology. She’s best renowned for her motivational & inspirational speeches about girl’s education through STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics and design) and empowerment of youth living in marginalised communities.

Surrey-based, Mariéme learned how to code seven programming languages from her local library. She received outstanding global accolades for being one of the pioneers in the technology ecosystem in Africa and for her passion in empowering marginalised girls to have access to education and Digital skills. She’s an Award-Winning technologist, in Sept 2017, she won the Innovation Award at the Global Goals Award 2017 by UNICEF & the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as a Goalkeeper for her work in advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. She is a Board of Director of the World Wide Web Foundation (Founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee). Mariéme’s latest venture includes the launch of iamtheCODE.org, the first African-led global movement to mobilise government, the private sector, and philanthropic foundations to advance STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Design) Education. Her goal is to empower 1 million young women & girls globally to become coders by 2030 and to align with the UN 2030 Agenda. Lady Mariéme recently got nominated by Apolitical as their World’s 100 most influential people in Digital Government.

For Booking please: Email: booking@mariemejamme.org

Martha Lane Fox

Patron

Martha Lane Fox is a British businesswoman, philanthropist, Internet Activist, entrepreneur and public servant.

She co-founded Last Minute.com during the dot-com boom in the early 2000s and served on public service digital projects. Martha is the President of the British chambers of commerce, Chair of @wetransfer, Non-Executive Director of Chanel and the chancellor of the Open University.

She entered the House of Lords as a crossbencher on 26 March 2013, becoming its youngest female member. In October 2019, she was named by the media and marketing publication “The Drum” as the most influential woman in Britain’s digital sector from the past quarter of a century.

In early 2000, she co-founded Lastminute.com. In November 2003, she stood down but remained the company’s non-executive director. She is a non-executive director at Marks & Spencer, MyDeco.com and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Martha is the President of the British chambers of commerce, Chair of @wetransfer, Non-Executive Director of Chanel and the chancellor of the Open University.

Baroness Lane Fox’s achievements do not just expand the business world; she is a trustee for Reprieve charity, which aims to fight for the victims of extreme human rights abuses with legal Action and public education. She is also a patron of the education pressure group CAMFED and has set up her own charity, a grant-making trust called Antigone. Lady Lane Fox’s services to the digital economy and charity have resulted in her being awarded Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honors. 2013 also saw her named as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 and she was made a life peer to sit as a crossbencher in the House of Lords.

Christopher Schlaeffer

Patron

Christopher is a European technology executive and serial founder. He served as Chief Digital Officer of VEON (NASDAQ: VEON) as well as Chief Product & Innovation Officer, Corporate Development Officer and Chief Strategy Officer of Deutsche Telekom (Xetra: DTE). His new company is NYOUM.

Together with Andy Rubin, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Chou and Cole Brodman Christopher unveiled the world’s first mobile phone based on Android, T-Mobile G1. In 2007, he and Tim Cook closed Apple ́s first partnership on iPhone outside the US. Christopher started his career with Accenture.

Christopher has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and ranked one of the Top50 Innovators To Watch. He takes an avid interest in promoting an open information society, science, arts and equality and graduated from the Vienna University of Economics.

Basetsana Kumalo

Patron

As a South African beauty queen. At the tender age of 16 winning Miss Black South Africa and Miss Soweto. When she turned 20 she entered and won Miss South Africa 1994 and in the same year went on and became the 1st runner up at Miss World. A fierce competitor, winning these pageant titles was only the beginning of Basetsana’s love story with the South African public.

She spent her reign as Miss South Africa raising fund for various organizations and charities, but also using this time to network with as many influential local and international people as she good, showing that drive and resilience that she would later portrait in her entrepreneurial career.

Board of Trustees

Akira Kirton

Vice President at BP pulse

Akira has deep experience in building sustainable energy businesses to tackle climate change. He has significant breadth in helping start-ups scale into sustainable businesses, having led bp’s venture capital group for Europe & Asia for over 6 years, and in recent years as VP Global Acetyls and VP bp Pulse UK. He is currently Vice President of bp pulse UK, leading the electric vehicle charging business in the UK for bp. Akira Kirton has proudly served as a board member and trustee of iamtheCODE on a pro-bono capacity since 2017.

Akira holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelors degree in Law & Management. He is a 2008 IChemE Innovation Award Winner, a 2012 Marshall Memorial Fellow and 2015 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Akira has previously sat on the educational advisory board of the European Climate KIC, and on the leadership advisory boards for the WEF YGL community (2018-2020); and the MMF (2014-16).