VANESSA NAKATE graduated from Makerere University Business School in 2018. In January 2019, she became the first Fridays for Future climate activist in Uganda and founded the Rise Up Climate Movement. She is also the founder of the Green Schools Project, which installs solar panels on all of Uganda’s 24,000 schools, and spearheaded the Save Congo Rainforest campaign. The United Nations named her a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2020. Vanessa is affiliated with the Wilson Center and the United Nations System Staff College as a climate activist. She has been written about, interviewed by, and has written for the Guardian, Yes!, Vox, Vogue, the Huffington Post, the International Women’s Forum, Global Landscapes Forum, Global Citizen, Greenpeace, CNN, the BBC, PBS, and United Nations media. She lives in Kampala, Uganda.