Dr. Lynsey Farrell

Dr. Lynsey Farrell is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Grandmother Collective. Over the last two decades, Lynsey’s work has focused on the intersections of youth, international development, urbanization, and informality in sub-Saharan Africa. She completed extensive field research among youth-self-help groups in the Kibera settlement of Nairobi, Kenya while directing American University’s Kenya program on Sustainable International Development. A scholar-practitioner, Lynsey worked with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public on numerous knowledge and learning efforts. As program director of a $6.6 million Mastercard Foundation funded grant on Innovations in Youth Employment in Africa, she curated and facilitated the Future of Work in Africa course, co-authored an innovation guide called Youth Unstuck: Innovations in Youth Livelihoods and Leadership in Africa, and pioneered the Ashoka Emerging Insights report, which showcases the latest trends in social innovation around the world. She received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University.