Judges

Mikael (Mika) Hajjar is a business operator turned investor. He launched new products and scaled up ventures at early-stage startups and Fortune 500 companies in the U.S., South Africa, China, and France. He was born in Dakar, Senegal and raised in Nouakchott, Mauritania. He grew empathy and inspiration for founders from a young age coming from an entrepreneurial family as his family has built businesses in West Africa for the past decades. Hajjar holds a master’s degree in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley and a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University.