Eyitemi Popo (MDEI ’16), 2025 Rising Star Alumni Award recipient
Eyitemi Popo (MDEI ’16) is a visionary entrepreneur and Forbes-listed changemaker whose work is reshaping how women explore and experience Africa. As Founder of Girls Trip Tours and President of the Girls MAP Foundation, she has built a women-led tourism ecosystem that empowers young women through immersive travel and mentorship across Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. A champion of ethical AI, Eyitemi led developer-focused strategy at Mozilla, where she advanced transparency and inclusion in tech. Her leadership earned her a spot among DMZ’s Women of the Year in 2022.
Q and A with Temi
What inspires you to pursue such a range of impactful initiatives?
Whether it’s women-led tourism, a data science academy for women, or ethical AI consulting, the common thread is designing systems that allow women not just to participate, but to thrive on their own terms.
I’ve lived and worked across multiple continents and industries, and I’ve seen how extractive many global systems are—from tourism that benefits everyone except locals to tech that scales harm faster than equity. My work is a response to that. I’m interested in building alternatives: economies rooted in wellbeing, technology rooted in accountability, and leadership models that center sustainability over speed.
I don’t see these initiatives as separate. Tourism is about mobility and capital flows. Artificial Intelligence is about power and decision-making. Ethical AI is about the future we’re automating into existence. If women — particularly Black women — aren’t involved in shaping these systems, we inherit futures designed without us in mind. That’s what drives me.
What challenges did you face, and what strategies helped you succeed?
Building largely as a solo founder meant carrying the weight of vision, execution, and risk at the same time—often without the safety nets or amplification that teams and institutions provide. I succeeded by getting clear about what systems I needed, how to document SOPs early, and design businesses that could run without my constant intervention. I was also intentional about focus—removing distraction, timing opportunities carefully, and only building what I could maintain long-term. My journey taught me that solo didn’t have to mean small.
How did the Master of Digital Experience Innovation (MDEI) program shape your vision?
The MDEI program helped me connect creativity, technology, and human-centered design in a way that fundamentally shaped how I build. That program allowed me to practice translating complex ideas into accessible, meaningful experiences, which has been invaluable across everything I’ve done—from designing work-study experiences for first-time data scientists, to creating luxurious tourism experiences that shift economic power, to facilitating conversations about ethical AI with PhD researchers, technologists, and policymakers. I didn’t leave with the goal of “innovation for innovation’s sake.” I graduated from the program with a commitment to responsible innovation—work that is thoughtful about who benefits, who is harmed, and who gets to decide. That perspective continues to guide my entrepreneurial vision today.