How can we bring empathy into the boardroom? Lady Marième Jamme has dedicated her career to figuring that out. She is the Founder of Accura8 Global and the IamtheCODE Foundation, but rather than introducing herself with either of those titles, she describes herself as, “somebody building for marginalized communities, especially women and girls across the world.” Her work is making ESG tangible and the Sustainable Development Goals in reach.
Accura8 Global is a global management consulting firm “bringing humanity in business through ethical data and digital intelligence.” The IamtheCODE Foundation “is the first African-led global movement to mobilize governments, the private sector, philanthropic foundations, investors and civil society to advance STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Design) education.” The two entities work together. Accur8 uses data to reveal the shortcomings of the ESG strategies of corporations and then IamtheCODE can step in to help them to fix it.
This work is important, now more than ever. “Right now, I think there’s no focus on really making a meaningful change. Everything is very static. There’s no human empathy and compassion. Decision makers have the opportunity to make a difference, but sometimes they don’t see the human side. There’s no human centered decision,” said Jamme.
Once the board is in agreement that something needs to be done, IamtheCODE develops a hackathon where people impacted by the negative externalities of corporate activities design solutions to reach a relevant Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs).
Lady Jamme is an authentic interlocutor. “I represent their voice, because I’ve seen the worst of humanity when decisions are not being made on behalf of all the people.” In her own words, her upbringing was “so bad, so terrible.” She and her twin brother were born in Senegal and abandoned by their mother. Her birth was not even recognized with a birth certificate. She was not given a formal education. As an adult, she has paid journalists to try to piece together the details, but growing up she said, “I lost my identity.”
Lady Jamme is an autodidact. As a teenager, she taught herself how to read and write. After moving to the UK to study and learn English, she found refuge in the public library. The library changed her life. It was here that she was introduced to technology and learned how to code.
The path she took from Senegal to being a global leader in technology and social entrepreneurship was a hard one, but her experiences also shaped her into the leader she is today. “Accumulation of pain and resilience and not giving up and hoping for the best, and taking one day at a time” was how she was able to change her life.
IamtheCODE has been training girls in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya to code. Of course, some of those girls will be able to put those skills to direct use to earn a livelihood and others will draw lessons that can carry them forward in other domains. That’s important, but more than that, “those kinds of interventions change society. It brings about a new conversation on girls’ education in refugee camps,” shared Jamme. The work of Lady Jamme through Innova8 and IamtheCODE is making sure those conversations are had when and where they matter and with the data to back them up.