About Tewodros Hailegeberel

To me, technology isn’t just about code or data; it’s a tool for connection. It’s about building systems that solve real problems for the people who actually have to use them.

I learned this early on in environmental science and GIS—the art of mapping where a city’s pipes, clinics, and communities really are. While working for a county government in Maryland, I’d take trips home to Addis Ababa and hit a constant roadblock: getting anywhere meant relying on word of mouth. Minibus taxis were the pulse of the city, yet there was no map, no official route guide, and no way to know the fair fare.

So, I set out to connect the dots. I started riding them.

Sululta, Burayu, Sebeta, Akaki, Summit—hub to hub, out to every edge of the city, logging routes on my phone.

That effort started as a simple digital map, but it opened up a much bigger question: If people are disconnected from basic route information, what else are they cut off from? Friends in Addis joined in, walking the streets with phones and GPS units. Together, we tagged over 50,000 locations by hand and mapped 800 buildings by name, while friends in the U.S. helped build the backend.

We called it eAdrasha—a way to use technology to bring a city closer together.

When people asked why we didn’t wait for global tech giants to map the area, the reason was clear: technology only works when it’s grounded in reality. They bought data from afar; we were standing in the street. When a local business moved or a road changed, we updated it that week.

Growing eAdrasha to 40 people and 25,000 users taught me what true problem-solving takes:

• Data quality requires constant, hands-on care.
• Technology must adapt to human behavior, not the other way around.
• A beautifully designed tool is useless if it doesn’t leave people better off and empowered to run it themselves.

I’ve carried that philosophy into every system I’ve built since.

Whether working with water utilities, U.S. local governments, USAID programs across eight international missions, or serving as Senior Digital Health Advisor for USAID/Ethiopia—guiding a $63 million national health portfolio—my focus has remained the same. Beyond the budget lines and technical specs, the real work is sitting at the table with ministry officials, developers, donors, and health workers across 8,000 rural clinics, using technology to link them together so the solution outlasts the project.

At the end of the day, I build systems, but I design for people. I use technology to fill in the missing pieces so communities, institutions, and the data between them can finally connect.