Recently appointed as African Union (AU) Youth Advisor on Disaster Risk Reduction, Tod'Aérs Chief Risk Officer (CRO) & Founder Manuel Ntumba will now (starting June 2023) be serving as the Chair of the African Union (AU) Youth Advisory Board on Disaster Risk Reduction (AYAB/DRR), jointly coordinated by the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment (DARBE), the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Unit and the Youth Division of the African Union Commission (AUC).
Prior to that, since June 2022, Manuel Ntumba was appointed as a Member of the Diplomatic Delegation to the United Nations Committee on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), within the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In January 2023, Manuel Ntumba was recognized by FORBES AFRICA LUSOFONA as "The Young Diplomat Revolutionizing the Use of Geospatial Data in Africa".
He was recently selected among the ELCA Fellows - "Emerging Leaders for Climate Action" by the UAE Embassy in Washington DC. As a geostrategist, inventor, advisor, and geospatial expert; Manuel Ntumba uses his expertise in satellite technology and geospatial intelligence to address global development policies and climate-related issues including Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). In July 2021, He was also recognized by BBC News as "The Hope for Africa in Space Technology" and as one of the world's youngest inventors in the space field.
Manuel Ntumba previously worked as Advisor to the African Union Presidential Panel of 2021 under the presidency of His Excellency President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); where he worked with Her Excellency Raissa Malu (a Member of the AU Presidential Panel of 2021) to develop a roadmap for the use of space technologies, digital transformation, and geospatial applications to achieve the Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU).
Additionally, Manuel Ntumba was recognized in March 2022, among the "Geospatial World’s Top 50 Rising Stars"; alongside engineers, scientists, and experts from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - as well as business leaders, and company executives from world-leading multinational technology companies such as Trumble, ESRI, EUMETSAT, Accenture, Printerest, Fugro, Satellogic, and many more.