Noella Dushime is Head of Global Partnerships and Founder at Proto, a sovereign AI infrastructure company helping governments and regulators deliver inclusive, multilingual, citizen-centric services. She leads Proto's expansion across Africa from Kigali, working with central banks, ministries and development partners.

Noella studied computer science at the University of Rwanda and information technology at Mount Kenya University. She began her career in telecom and sales, became Country Manager for ITM Africa in Tanzania, and later served as Director of Business Development and Partnerships at Irembo, Rwanda's e-government platform.

In 2015, at age 22, Noella founded Imagine We Publishers, a venture created so African children could see themselves in books. She is a frequent speaker on AI for low-resource languages, instant payment disputes and women's exposure to fraud.

At Irembo she led the digitization of over 100 government services, and at ITM Africa she helped place over 500 Tanzanian professionals and train more than 10,000 graduates. At Proto she moved from Managing Director for the Africa Region to Head of Global Partnerships in January 2026.

Proto processes 35M AI interactions annually across 8 low-resource languages in Africa and Asia. Its work with the National Bank of Rwanda and the Gates Inclusive Financial Systems programme advances consumer protection and grievance redress in digital public infrastructure.