Dr. Charity Wayua is the Director of IBM Research Africa labs located in Kenya and South Africa; whose mission is to develop what’s next in computing. As Director, Charity is responsible for fostering the local innovation ecosystem and building partnerships with government, industry academia and start-ups and identifying, attracting, and managing top talent and generally strategy and technical execution. Today her teams are leveraging artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hybrid cloud in areas such as climate and sustainability and healthcare etc. Before this role, Charity played multiple technical roles leading teams developing technology solutions in agriculture, public sector, financial services, and education resulting in solutions that have transformed businesses and government and impacted people’s lives. She has received several awards and recognition including Kenya’s top 40 women under 40, a head of state commendation in Kenya, IBM’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award and Best of IBM (awarded to top 0.25% IBMers annually) among others. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Xavier University, (Ohio, US) and a PhD in Chemistry at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana, US) where her research was focused on developing targeted therapeutics and imaging agents for lung, pancreatic and colon cancers. She is passionate about leveraging science and technology to address Africa’s grand challenges and is a strong advocate for bringing science, innovation and data at the intersection of policy, development and business.