Leadership and Operations Staff

Njideka Harry

President & CEO, YTF

Njideka is the president and CEO of Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF). In this role, she is responsible for setting the organization’s strategy, overseeing its programs, and managing its relationships with YTF’s public and private partnerships. In addition, Njideka works with the YTF senior leadership team to review and evaluate the results of program activities, and organizational and administrative policies for program objectives.

Njideka earned her BBA in finance and economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She completed her post-graduate studies at Stanford University, where she was a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow. She is an Ashoka Fellow and a social entrepreneur at the World Economic Forum.

Will Cortes

Chief Operating Officer

In Will’s role as YTF’s chief operating officer, he works with YTF’s president and senior leadership team to align YTF’s operating plan with the mission-oriented goals and objectives.

Will has spent most of his career in education, serving as the director of Executive Education at Columbia University and the director of Custom Programs at the Wharton school respectively. He also served as the academic advisor and director of the Global Immersion Program in Wharton’s Graduate Division.
Will earned his BBA from the Wharton School and his MBA from St. Joseph’s University.

Brenda Firquin

Chief Learning Officer

Brenda’s extensive background in educational technology includes experience in project management, curriculum development, instructional design and training and development. Prior to joining the YTF team, Brenda was employed by Connected Learning Network where she served as the director of project development for more than 10 years. In that role, she managed the development and implementation of interactive, online learning programs and custom learning solutions. Her expertise includes online, blended, and instructor-led learning programs in educational, non-profit, government, healthcare, and corporate environments.

Brenda is a graduate of the University of Louisville, where she obtained a bachelor of science degree in information science from Speed Scientific School. She has also pursued graduate studies in education technology at the University’s College of Education.

Dan Selcke

Editor, Community Engagement

Dan graduated from the Chicago-Kent College of Law in 2011. While practicing law, he wrote articles for publications like Employment Law Daily and The A.V. Club. As editor, he works with YTF’s contribution to leading journals and publications.

Dan graduated with a bachelor of science in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has served as a law clerk for Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, a research fellow at the Chicago-Kent College of Law and a Legal Publisher for Amicus Media, LLC.

Narges Khoramshahi

Next Generation Leader

Narges is a Next Generation Leader on sabbatical from the Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. Narges has collaborated with Tehran University and the Justice Sunshine law foundation to establish an entrepreneurship office in Tehran. This operation teaches the entrepreneurship process through training, networking and generating self-employment and self-development opportunities.

She is a member of YouthfulCities, a social initiative focused on global youth as forces of change, and serves as Tehran’s Urban Decoder. Narges is passionate about empowering women and youth by providing educational and entrepreneurship opportunities.

Terri Tinnell

STEM Programs Lead, Monitoring & Evaluation

Terri is responsible for designing, monitoring, and evaluating learning systems. She oversees the learning agenda, key outputs/outcome and impact indicators for students. She provides support for data analysis and data to promote evidence-based programming for STEM education at YTF.

Terri spent several years an instructor at Project Lead the Way (PLW), where she initialized certification for the program and maintained technology student leadership programs through mentorship and student-driven design projects. Prior to that, Terri was an engineering team lead at General Electric.

Terri earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and her master of art in teaching secondary education and is currently pursuing her PhD in curriculum and instruction at the University of Louisville. She is a member of the American Society of Engineering Educators and the National Science Teachers Association.

Pat Vickers

Technology Manager

Pat is the technology officer of global programs for YTF. An avid writer and tech support pro, she is responsible for managing YTF’s vendor and partner relationships with technology firms. A certified Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher, Pat is passionate about working with nonprofits to get the technology they need and to provide training to the learners.

Pat was a regular contributor to Tech Republic and wrote several articles. In her free time, she directs short comedy videos that one day may be available on the Internet.

Pamela Chukwuemeka

Advisor, Education Technology Leader-Africa

Pamela Chukwuemeka is a Microsoft Service Adoption Specialist, TechWomen 2018 Fellow and currently serves as the Assistant General Manager, Sales and Customer Success with Wragby Business Solutions and Technologies Limited.

With well over 12 years of vast industry experience, she is a broadly skilled digital transformation-change practitioner who has trained over 5000 corporate users on business use cases of adopting Microsoft O365 applications across IT consulting, financial services, telecommunications, and educational organizations.

Pamela has led innovative transformational digital transformation programs like the deployment of the Moodle Virtual Learning systems in Greensprings School, the Microsoft Imagine Academy program for Usman Dan Fodio University and Southern Atlantic Polytechnic aimed at creating platforms for accessible remote education. Pamela in her spare time loves listening to music, reading business and spiritual books as well as traveling for technology conferences.