Walamatien Coulibaly

Supported the Institutional Funding team in researching donor prospects, drafting proposal components, and tracking reporting requirements for community development programs across New York. Assisted in ensuring compliance with funding guidelines and donor communications. Gained hands-on experience in nonprofit fundraising, monitoring, and documentation practices supporting vulnerable populations.

Managed a $3M rural development program improving agricultural productivity and livelihoods across three regions. Supervised compliance, monitoring, and coordination with government agencies, donors, and local cooperatives.

Lead a nonprofit advancing climate-smart agriculture for 3,000+ smallholder farmers through regenerative training, digital tools, and market access. Oversee program strategy, partnerships, and fundraising, including the incubation of TikaHarvest, an AI-powered climate advisory platform.

Founded and lead the Mita Project, a nonprofit organization empowering smallholder farmers—especially women and youth—through regenerative agriculture, digital advisory tools, and market access. Since 2021, Mita Project has trained over 3,000 farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, improving productivity, climate resilience, and income stability. To scale this impact, the organization later incubated TikaHarvest, an AI-powered platform delivering hyper-local climate advisories, embedded microfinance, and verified buyer linkages across West Africa. This initiative demonstrates how technology, community partnerships, and evidence-based design can transform smallholder farming into a driver of sustainability and opportunity.

Conducted field-based research in the Philippines as part of IPED’s Project Evaluation Practicum course, assessing development outcomes across rural communities. Applied mixed-methods evaluation tools to analyze program effectiveness and community impact. Findings were presented at Fordham’s GSAS Research Day, highlighting evidence-based insights for improving future development initiatives.

Published on Mita Project website, this article outlines a framework for evaluating and ensuring the safety of AI-driven agricultural advisories deployed in low-resource environments. It introduces a practical “Deployment Safety Blueprint” emphasizing harm testing, workflow telemetry, and institutional accountability mechanisms tailored to smallholder farming systems in Africa. The piece advances the conversation on AI governance, safety certification, and ethical deployment in real-world agricultural contexts.