Nadia Eleza Khawaja, MPH

Co-Founder & CEO

Nadia Khawaja is the co-founder and current CEO of Jolkona. She is passionate about philanthropy and making a global impact and is excited about allowing others to do so easily and effectively through micro-donations through Jolkona’s unique approach to giving.

Prior to starting Jolkona, she worked in the non-profit sector in Los Angeles promoting social entrepreneurship and financial literacy to inner city youth. She is passionate about nutrition and development so after learning about the day-to-day operations of running a non-profit for two years, she went back to graduate school and studied Public Health and nutrition while running Jolkona in the evenings.

Nadia graduated from UCLA with a BA in Business/Economics and a minor in Public Policy and has a Master in Public Health and Nutrition from the University of Washington in Seattle. In her spare time, she works on global health nutrition research projects, travels, and mentors others interested in nutrition or the non-profit space.

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Mari Hirabayashi

Chief Operating Officer

With nearly a decade of experience in marketing, fundraising, event planning and non-profit development, Mari's passion lies within helping others and enriching lives. More recently, she has focused energy towards strengthening education, women's rights, public health and global issues.

Previously, Mari worked for the Martinez Foundation, providing scholarships to teachers of color in Washington State. Learning more about children coming from disadvantaged situations fueled her to get even more involved in her local community.

Dedicated to volunteerism, a Nepal trip, in which she worked with orphans with disabilities, her personal mission became to help others in need, especially children facing great obstacles such as lack of proper healthcare, education, food and shelter. In Seattle, she tutored at Maple Elementary on Beacon Hill, working to close the achievement gap in education.

Mari graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in English literature; her continuing education courses included early childhood development training, art, and the Spanish language. Today she loves all things family, literature, travel, food and adventure.

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Daljit Singh

Office Manager

Daljit is the office manager at Jolkona. She ensures that Jolkona's operations run smoothly. From dealing with administrative issues to maintaining first lines of communication, she also solves problems for Jolkona donors and staff. Prior to joining Jolkona's staff, Daljit interned for Jolkona. As an intern, she helped Jolkona gain visibility through different avenues of social media including Pinterest. Daljit has interned and worked for the Economic Alliance Snohomish County and UW's Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality. She has Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a focus on Human Rights from the University of Washington. Daljit loves travel, her friends, and all things Jolkona.

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Adnan Mahmud

Co-Founder

Adnan Mahmud is the co-founder of Jolkona and was the CEO during its start-up phase. His motivation for starting Jolkona comes from having grown up in Bangladesh and witnessing some of the worst conditions that humans are forced to live through and wanting to do something about it. Although these conditions are very unfortunate, he sees opportunities for using technology to improve these conditions.

Adnan has over eight years experience managing technology related projects at Microsoft. During the day, Adnan currently works as a Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation heading the technology transfers out of the research lab in Beijing. He holds a BS from Angelo State University and a MS degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

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Seema Bhende

Director of Strategy

Seema is passionate about how Jolkona connects everyday people with a passion for giving back to high-impact projects. Seema has dedicated her career to philanthropy and specializes in the development of strategic, win-win partnerships between the private and public sector. In her day job, Seema is a Senior Director with Waggener Edstrom's Social Innovation practice focusing on corporate social responsibility projects.

Prior to joining Waggener, Seema served as Director of Strategic Philanthropy with L'Oreal Paris in New York City. Before L'Oreal, Seema worked in India for Futures Group, an international development consulting company where she worked on public healthcare projects. At the same time, she was a project manager for a grassroots nonprofit, The Kutumb Foundation, that provides education and healthcare services to slum communities in New Delhi. Seema started her career in strategy consulting for The Corporate Executive Board in Washington DC.

Seema graduated with a bachelor of arts in International Economics and Spanish from the George Washington University. She is fluent in Spanish, proficient in Hindi and conversational in Mandarin.

Chi Do

Events Director / Community Engagement

Chi has been volunteering with Jolkona since June 2010. She participated in Events, Research & Development, and PR projects. Most recently, she successfully co-led a cultural fashion show fundraiser during Microsoft Giving Campaign 2012. Chi’s involvement with Jolkona stems from her passion about global health and helping other people. She believes in Jolkona’s vision of giving, "every drop counts". Through Jolkona, she hopes to help empowering young professionals to give and share, within each individual’s capacity.

Chi finished both of her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Washington. Go Huskies!! With an academic background in Science (BS in Microbiology) and Business (Masters in Health Administration), she has held different posts within UW Medicine, ranging from operational management to clinical research administration. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, dancing, and traveling. Her most wonderful travel memories were with Jolkona’s volunteering trips to South America and Southeast Asia.

Kaylin King

Director of Development

Kaylin King is responsible for Jolkona's development efforts. Kaylin hopes to build a constituency of donors and partners who share Jolkona's vision of creative approaches to alleviate socio-economic problems. Prior to joining Jolkona, Kaylin worked with the Buntain Foundation, assisting in product creation, branding and marketing of fair trade retail products.

While pursuing a BA from the University of Wisconsin, Kaylin's passion for international development impelled her to travel the world - from elementary school teacher in Argentina to development project work in South Africa to participating in student exchange programs in Turkey and Chile. Kaylin's travels have ultimately landed her in Seattle, where she recently completed an MA in International Care and Community Development from Northwest University.

Pragya Mahnot

Marketing Advisor for Events

Pragya is the Marketing Advisor for the Events team at Jolkona. She leverages social media tools to execute strategies and maximize reach in the community. Her specialization in advertising brings in an amalgamation of creativity and uniqueness to the marketing efforts for the events. Prior to joining Jolkona, she was associated with Rotaract for 3 years in the capacity of a volunteer, editor and President. She spearheaded many projects for poor and disabled children in India.

Pragya did her Bachelors degree in Visual Arts and pursued her Post Graduation Diploma in Advertising and Marketing from India. She worked as a Research Associate in advertising team, with Manav Rachna International University, India prior to moving to Seattle. Apart from being a conceptualizer, she also worked as a freelance writer for a leading newspaper brand - The Times of India.

Jolkona is a transparent platform for giving and helping people around the world. The belief that small donations can make a huge impact is the reason she is here today.

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Nancy Xu

Storyteller & Design Director

Nancy has been working with Jolkona for 3 years on various creative endeavors like the Hulu commercial, event posters and the current website redesign. Nancy works in the Innovation Lab inside Microsoft by day and loves to work on Jolkona initiatives with the crew at night and weekends. Nancy has been doing volunteering work since the age of 11, but it was the first Jolkona trip to see the work in the field that really changed her perspective and affirmed her dedication to the world's bottom billion.

Dania Primley

Director of Human Resources

Dania is heading up the Human Resources program with Jolkona, helping with the intern on boarding and recruiting process as well as volunteer management. She has been developing Job Descriptions and processes to ensure the interns have a seamless transition in and out of Jolkona. Our volunteers and interns are an integral part of our team and she makes sure that they get as much out of Jolkona (or more) as they put in!

Dania graduated from the University of Washington Foster School of Business with a degree in Human Resource management and a certificate of International Studies in Business. She brings a background in Human Resource management and has held HR positions with Associates in Cultural Exchange, Target Corporation, and International Inspection Inc.

Fueled by her desire to eradicate poverty and poor health conditions worldwide she has volunteered at various place including: John Stanford International School, Camp Side by Side, Associates in Cultural Exchange, Make a Wish Foundation, and various others. After attending the International Women's Day event she was drawn to Jolkona due to their unique idea of bringing in donors to projects all over the world and country.

Adrian Balasa

Graphic Designer

Adrian was introduced to Jolkona as a graphic design intern, providing design needs across the board. Inspired by Jolkona’s accomplishments and mission, Adrian continues his service as a volunteer. From publications to logos to web and mobile design, Adrian is an innovative, forward thinking designer who is always up for the challenge. Prior to joining Jolkona, Adrian worked as a professional in the insurance and real estate industry. He received his degree in Digital Design from LWTI and is focused on continuing to learn the trends of the design industry. In his spare time, Adrian enjoys the outdoors and traveling the world.

Punit Java

Co-Director of Technology

Punit is passionate about finding new ways to connect people with technology to enrich their lives. He has several years of experience building mobile and embedded products with Microsoft, Amazon and through his own private ventures. Punit has a Bachelors degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo. Punit's role at Jolkona is to help with technology strategy including building the web and mobile experiences.

Pavankumar Potaraju

Co-Director of Technology

Pavan is the co-technical director for Jolkona. He has over 6 years experience in building software. He played a major role in shipping the first WP7 app (Change by Jolkona) that lets you set, track and share personal goals and motivate you by showing how you can create positive change in the world. Over the past 3 years, he has also been involved in various fundraising events for Jolkona. He is passionate about creating philanthropists through the power of technology.

Pavan graduated with a masters in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Dallas. He works for Microsoft helping build the mobile experience for Bing. In his free time, he enjoys watching NBA, playing volleyball, running, and strength training.

Gabriel St.John

Online Content Manager

Gabriel is a Masters of Research graduate in European Languages and Culture. He hails all the way from Cornwall, England, where he studied at the University of Exeter. He has a BA in Italian, which he speaks fluently. Previously, between his undergraduate and his Masters, he taught English in Italy for two years.

An interesting fact: he was born in Morocco, living there for eight years before his family (he is the youngest of six!) moved back to England. He loves music and likes to meddle with the guitar and drums when he can. A great admirer of literature, he is also a voracious reader and dabbles - more than he likes to admit - in creative writing. Curiously, his surname, St. John, is pronounced SIN-gin. It’s a corruption of the French pronunciation, San Jean.

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Zanoon Nissar

San Francisco Ambassador

Zanoon Nissar works in Mobile Display Advertising at Google (AdMob), specializing in the mobile advertising ecosystem for financial advertisers. For the past 2 years, she’s been involved with events, fundraising & partnerships for Jolkona, and also spearheaded their Give2Girls campaign. Zanoon also mentors high-school girls through Technovation. She is passionate about projects that merge mobile technology with social good, and co-developed an app that helps women get home safe at night.