Harry was born in Ibadan to a Nigerian father and American mother.[1] When the Biafra war broke out, her father won a scholarship to study in the United States which is where he met and married her mother.[2] She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[2][3] After graduating, she began working for General Electric, and lived/worked in Europe and in the U.S. [2] Harry left GE and began a career at Microsoft, where she founded YTF in 2000.[2] It is a nonprofit that uses technology to improve the lives of young people and women in developing countries.[4] Harry is particularly worried about the state of education in Africa as the system is not just broken, but obsolete. She envisions technology as an enabler.[5][6]
In 2011 she was nominated into the Ashoka Fellowship as an Ashoka Fellow.[8] She launched the Women Entrepreneurs and Mobile Value Added Services in 2012 which provides funding, training and networking opportunities to thousands of young women.[2] The program is supported by Mastercard.[2] She partnered with the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women in 2013.[9]
Harry is keen on 3D printing.[10] She launched 3D Africa, an educational program that provides training for unemployed African engineers, in 2015.[11] The engineers learn skills in computer-aided design, robotics, IoT, programming and entrepreneurship.[12] The program has been funded by GE, Makerbot, Autodesk and WeTech (Women Enhancing Technology).[13] Recognizing that girls were reluctant to commit to the after school clubs, Harry launched "3D Africa for Girls" to teach girls human centered design and production.[14] The Clinton Global Initiative selected YTF as a commitment partner (Clinton Foundation) in 2016 to launch an initiative providing training to 6,000 girls who are out-of-school in Nigeria.[15] YTF is collaborating with schools in Nigeria and Kenya to develop physical and virtual maker spaces that allow young entrepreneurs to prototype their ideas.[16]
