Jill Young is the Co-owner and founder of EvenMe, an innovative online portal and App that provides access to youth career and development support. Jill is also the founder and director of corporate fundamentals (Pty) Ltd and the owner of Unique Soles. She previously worked as an employee communications developer for Nokia (2012); as the head of Internal Communications Middle East and Africa for Nokia (2010); and the Marketing Manager: Brand Sponsorship and Events (Activation Manager) for Nokia (2007) She was the Project manager at Makwetla and Associates; formerly the CEO of the National Delphic Council.

Erica Penfold is currently a freelance researcher and a PhD candidate in the Politics Department at Stellenbosch University. She was previously employed as a research fellow with the South African Institute of International Affairs. She has worked for non-profit organisations and civil society, including Global Integrity, Management Sciences for Health and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. She has been involved in a number of research projects across Africa, with particular focus on global health governance. Her research interests are regionalism, Southern Africa’s international relations, access to health care and medicines, democratic reform and development.

Jacqui Kew is an Associate Professor at the College of Accounting (UCT) and teaches on various Executive Short Courses at UCT’s Graduate School of Business. She is the Principal author of Financial Accounting: An Introduction and is Project Director of http://www.learnaccounting.uct.ac.za, a free multi-lingual College of Accounting initiative offering short concept videos on accounting-based topics. She is also involved in entrepreneurial research and regularly co-authors the South African Global Entrepreneurship Monitor.

Volker Schöer is a lecturer in economics at the University of the Witwatersrand. He holds a MA in economics from the University of Cape Town. Volker’s research investigates worker and firm dynamics with particular focus on job matching, and education. He is also the director of the African Micro-Economic Research Unit (AMERU) at the University of the Witwatersrand. The AMERU focuses on micro-econometric analysis of South African labour force and firm level data. Some of the latest projects of the AMERU include impact evaluation studies of a youth wage subsidy and various education interventions.

Gareth is a lecturer at the School of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand and has been a researcher at AMERU since 2008. His primary interest is in youth unemployment and he was most recently part of a team that implemented an evaluation of a targeted youth wage-subsidy voucher for the National Treasury of South Africa. Gareth also has extensive experience managing data collection and is currently the Impact Evaluation coordinator in South Africa for the World Bank’s Development Impact Evaluation Initiative (DIME).

Having completed her undergraduate studies at Stellenbosch in 2005, Debra passed her Bcomm Honours and Mcomm degree Cum Laude in 2007 and 2009 respectively. Debra was employed as a junior lecturer and researcher in the Economics Department at Stellenbosch from 2008 to 2011, she was also a researcher at the African Micro Economics Research Unit based at the University of the Witwatersrand. Currently she works as an economics lecturer at Stellenbosch University. She was also a VU-NRF Desmond Tutu Doctoral Scholarship candidate, where she completed her PhD in Development Economics through Vrijie Universiteit Amsterdam and Stellenbosch University. Her thesis focused on the Analysis efficiently and effectiveness within the South African education system.

Neil Rankin is an Associate Professor in Economics at Stellenbosch University. He holds a MA in Economics from the Simon Fraser University and completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Oxford in 2006. Neil is an applied micro-economist working in the areas of labour markets, firms, pricing, trade and impact evaluation. As part of his research he has managed and administered firm and labour market surveys in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Morné Oosthuizen is Deputy Director of the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) located within the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. He joined the DPRU as a researcher in 2002 and holds an M.Comm. degree in Economics from the University of Stellenbosch. His research interests include intergenerational transfers, poverty, inequality, and labour economics. Morné is currently completing his PhD at the University of Cape Town on the topic of intergenerational transfers and National Transfer Accounts in South Africa.

Aalia Cassim obtained an Honours degree from the University of Witwatersrand and a MSc in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of London. Her expertise includes Competition and Regulatory Economic Consulting, Sustainable Education and Social Entrepreneurship.Prior to joining the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Cape Town as a senior researcher in July 2013, Aalia worked in the Competition and Regulatory Practice at Genesis Analytics. Aalia left the DPRU to join the National Treasury in December 2015. At the DPRU Aalia worked in a number of areas including higher education, industrial policy, temporary employment services, minimum wages, youth unemployment, the informal sector and social welfare. She also undertook an exercise profiling labour markets in Tanzania and Zambia.