Ory Okolloh

Who is Ory Okolloh?

Ory Okolloh is a Kenyan activist, lawyer, and blogger. She currently holds the position of Director of Investments at Omidyar Network. She was formerly the Policy Manager for Africa with Google. In 2006 she co-founded the parliamentary watchdog site Mzalendo. The site sought to increase government accountability by systematically recording bills, speeches, MPs, standing orders, etc. When Kenya was engulfed in violence following a disputed presidential election in 2007, Okolloh helped create Ushahidi, a website that collected and recorded eyewitness reports of violence using text messages and Google Maps. The technology has since been adapted for other purposes and used in a number of other countries. Okolloh also has a personal blog, Kenyan Pundit, which was featured on Global Voices Online. She also worked as a legal consultant for NGOs and has worked at Covington and Burling, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, and the World Bank in the past.

Okolloh was born into a relatively poor family. She has said that her parents sent her to a private elementary school that they could "barely afford," which "set the foundation for what ended up being my career." She earned an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2005. Her father died of AIDS in 1999. Okolloh lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her husband and three children.