We are excited to announce that our CTO Salton Massally has received his Queen’s Young Leaders award from the Queen.
The Queen’s Young Leaders program honours enthusiastic change makers from Commonwealth countries who are striving for the betterment of their communities. It provides them with training and networking opportunities to enhance their leadership skills so they can have an even greater impact.
As part of this year’s program, Massally and the other Young Leaders received an extensive 3 day training at The University of Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education where they learnt innovative techniques on how to take their projects to the next level. They also met with business leaders at the BBC and Facebook offices in the UK and received expert mentorship and advice.
A self-taught programmer and entrepreneur, Massally has always believed in the power of technology to drive solutions for the biggest problems in his native Sierra Leone. He set up iDT Labs in 2013 to put his vision into action, along with a young and enthusiastic team.
Under Massally’s guidance and expertise, the team soon proved itself capable by being the first to develop and implement a biometric registration and mobile payments system to register and pay 27,000 Ebola Response Workers. This system prevented ERWs from going on strike so they could continue their critical work.
Since then, iDT Labs has been successfully executing various radical and effective projects with government institutions, NGO bodies and citizen-led initiatives. We have also been actively assisting the youth of our community, particularly women, to rise up in tech-oriented careers through computer literacy programs.
Winning the Queen’s Young Leaders Award is a special honour for Massally and a humbling experience for the team. The award has not only equipped our CTO with enhanced leadership skills, but it has also connected us to a global community. Being part of such a prestigious platform is poised to give us the boost to do more ambitious projects, partner with international bodies and serve the Sierra Leonean people in more innovative ways
Upon receiving the award, Salton said “I am very happy to have received this but the award belongs to the entire team at iDT Labs whose energy and drive have made it possible for us to accomplish so much. We are very excited to see what doors this will open for us in the near future!”
