person
David Selassie Opoku
David Selassie Opoku is a farmer and technologist from Ghana working at the intersection of food systems, technology, and education. He is currently the co-founder and Director of Technology at Growing Gold Farms, a food systems venture based in Tema, Ghana.
His work has focused on making data and technological skills accessible to journalists, advocacy organizations, entrepreneurs, academic institutions, and governments in resource-constrained contexts in over 30 countries across 5 continents. He has worked in data and technology roles with UNICEF’s Vaccine Delivery Programme, Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, Open Knowledge Foundation and Open Contracting Partnership. He was a 2015 School of Data Fellow and a member of the United World College Council from 2016 to 2020.
He is a graduate of the United World College Costa Rica, Swarthmore College, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
What is your research focus?
Democratizing Knowledge and Innovation in Smallholder Farming.
How do you plan to change the world?
Build a distributed community and infrastructure that enables a generation of smart, creative and expert food actors who can replicate and scale sustainable (physiological, social/communal, economic, spiritual and environmental) and accessible food production processes and systems. At Growing Gold Farms, we believe in the power and wisdom of different food actors and aim to create better access to tools, skills, and networks that will make the space smarter. We are exploring accessible ways to leverage low technical and technological techniques to drive better data intelligence and network coordination in the food space.
What is an interesting fact about yourself?
I lived in Costa Rica for the last 2 years of high school.
What is music/film/art that represents who you are?
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind (Movie).