D'Andre Wilson-Ihejirika

“The best thing about Fort McMurray is the community! There are so many great people here doing so much to make this city as great as it can possibly be!”

D’Andre is originally from the Bahamas. She came to Canada to study Chemical Engineering at McGill and then went on to receive a Master’s of Applied Science at the University of Toronto. In 2011, D’Andre was chosen as one of the Centre for Social Innovation’s Agents of Change, and in 2013, she was featured as one of Next 10 Influential People in Alberta Venture Magazine and she won a Heart of Wood Buffalo Award.

She started and runs BrainSTEM Alliance, which provides outreach programming in sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM) for young Albertans. Not content with doing this in one country, she also does the same in the Bahamas as the Vice-President and Co-Founder of the Bahamas Engineering & Technology Advancement, (BETA).

Until the fire, she also had her own company Ziri Bags, which manufactured African wax-print cloth bags. She used this business to donate a percentage of sales to scholarships for women. She is married to an engineer and they have two children.

D’Andre was one of the Conference Planning Committee Members for Convergence YMM, and is also a Member of Board of Directors of the Wood Buffalo Youth Science Foundation, which is responsible for the organization and implementation of the annual Wood Buffalo Regional Science Fair (WBRSF). But when she was asked what her greatest achievement, she said: “Starting the Operation SMART program in partnership with Girls Inc. I think it has made an impact on a lot of young girls and has encouraged many female engineers to get more involved in the community.”

Given all that, it’s not surprising that she describes herself as an engineer and a social entrepreneur. What is surprising is that she says on her resume that “I am always looking for new opportunities to expand my learning and gain new experiences.” To which we ask, when are you going to have the time?