Speaker Bios

Mr. Lye Ogunsanya

Lye Ogunsanya is a US State Dept IVLP Alumni and a former telecoms executive. He is super passionate about linking the frontiers of technology with societal benefit.

Lye is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Dídean, the first of its kind Social enterprise in Ireland now disrupting the International Protection applicant services sector. Prior to Dídean, Lye was Portfolio Manager at The One Foundation Dublin where he led change driven programs in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Colombia and the Mediterranean. The programmes disrupted the Education in Emergency sector and contributed to precedents for the UN adolescent education programme ‘Generation Unlimited’.

Lye’s work with UNICEF involved developing humanitarian programs for families, youth and children in a number of refugee camps along the Syria/ Lebanon border and the Syrian/Jordan border. The programmes involved health, education and youth/adolescent development. His work in Jordan won UNICEF’s Champion for Children Award in 2018 due to the highly innovative and forward-thinking programme strategy. In the Mediterranean (Libya-Italy) he oversaw an aerial intervention program. This aviation intervention resulted in hundreds of lives being saved. In Malawi Lye worked, in partnership with UNICEF, on the negotiations and capital investment funding for Africa’s First Humanitarian Drone and Data Academy. The goal of the Academy is to prepare and up-skill graduates to capitalise on the emerging smart workforce sector.

Lye is a published academic author on the subject of artificial intelligence and the opportunities to create employment opportunities for refugees and displaced persons using advances in technology. He co-founded and remains advisor to Dublin based Millennia Aviation, a social enterprise working to ethically inform, educate and contribute to local development of the vertical mobility workforce with a socially responsible ethos. He also co- founded the social enterprise and lifestyle brand House of Akina in 2013 as a member of the Enactus All Ireland championship winners, Dublin City University.
In 2021 Lye co-founded CENF, a think tank at the Federal Polytechnic of Ilaro Nigeria, to facilitate ethical diaspora knowledge sharing for local development in Africa’s most populous nation. He has also recently been appointed as a Board Member of the prestigious Temple Bar Galleries+Studio Dublin and currently serves on the board of the Ireland United States Alumni Association (IUSA).

Further Information can be found at https://www.didean.ie/team

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