Nadine Iradukunda

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Cohort

Nadine is an aspiring product design engineer. She completed her three years of education in Mechanical engineering at Ashesi University. Currently, she is excited to further her engineering journey at Arizona state university to complete her fourth year and master’s in Mechanical Engineering as a Mastercard Foundation scholar. She values service, justice, and diversity.  Nadine takes an interest in machine design and industrial machinery operations. She believes opportunity in design and manufacturing would play a vital role in achieving her dream of designing an efficient agriculture machine that will help farmers in Rwanda to attain high-quality farm produce to sell to the ever-growing global market. Nadine is a global citizen who believes in design and entrepreneurship as a key to solve challenges facing communities. She has experience with East Africa Power in Rwanda where she worked with a team that designed bamboo kiln machines. An opportunity as the MasterCard Foundation scholarship has given her a chance to recognize her role in impacting communities. She was invited to attend the MasterCard Baobab Summit in Rwanda and presented her project called Healthy Us which was awarded the Resolution Social Venture Competition. Healthy Us aims at improving the wellbeing of 30 to 60 orphans through the planting of kitchen gardens, enhancing mushroom farming and further helps in creating awareness through campaigns and agriculture workshops. Part of the produce is sold, and the income is used to meet orphans’ basic needs. Thus, she envisions herself as a changemaker bridging development gaps in society.