WorldRemit founder Ismail Ahmed plans to commit $500 million (Sh55 billion) of his own wealth and technology investments on development programmes targeting Somaliland.

Through Sahamiye Foundation, a philanthropic organisation launched on Thursday, April 8, the WorldRemit founder intends to focus on technology and innovation to tackle Somaliland’s most pressing development challenges

Based in London and Hargesia, Somalia’s capital, the foundation will primarily focus on education, healthcare and infrastructure projects across Somaliland.

Ismael who grew up in Kenya said the foundation, based in London and Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, will initially focus on education, healthcare and infrastructure projects across Somaliland.

The Foundation seeks to help 1 million adults and young people acquire literacy skills in the Somali language and support over 100,000 people to develop technical and vocational skills for employment and entrepreneurship; invest in start-up accelerators; and increase levels of health and financial literacy across the country’s population.

“The foundation has already unveiled a series of major education programmes including Daariz, a free, fun and easy-to-use app that helps people with low literacy skills to learn the Somali language,” Ismael said.

WorldRemit is a global leader in mobile money transaction boasting of more than 180,000 monthly mobile money transactions worldwide.

Before Ismail founded WorldRemit, he served as a compliance officer to the United Nations, working in both Nairobi and Dubai. He was also named the most influential black Briton in the 2020 Powerlist.

He has a PhD from the University of London and an MBA from London Business School. 

Home to around 4.5 million people Somaliland adopted an innovative approach to building its own institutions that are optimised for the specific challenges that the country faces.