Jamila Gordon

Jamila Gordon is a Somali Australian entrepreneur. She is the chief executive officer and founder of an Australian SaaS company applying AI and Blockchain to food supply channels (Lumachain). After escaping the Somalian Civil War at the age of eighteen, she was a displaced person in Kenya before moving to Australia, where she received a degree in IT from the La Trobe University. Australia & New Zealand Innovator of the Year in the Women in AI Awards 2020, NSW Pearcey Entrepreneur of the Year 2021. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.

Early life and education Jamila Gordon was born to a nomadic family in the hinterland of Somalia and brought up in a small village as one of 16 children. As the eldest daughter, she was expected to play a key role in running the family home from approximately five years old, and these responsibilities took precedence over her education. Her family moved to Mogadishu when she was 11 years old to avoid a drought. Once civil war broke out, she became a displaced person in Kenya. There, Gordon met an Australian backpacker, who helped her move to Australia. and enrolled in an accounting degree at La Trobe University in Melbourne. She switched her major to software engineering after taking a programming elective and eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Business and Information Technology degree in 1995.

Career

Early Gordon stated she worked as a dish washer and a kitchen hand at a local Japanese restaurant during her years in college. She continued her work in software for British Gas and later at the airline Emirates. In 2019, the company partnered with Microsoft, JBS S.A. and CSIRO for a large scale trials.

Awards 2009 La Trobe University Distinguished Alumni Award. 2018 Global Awardee, Microsoft International Women Entrepreneurship Challenge (IWEC).

Personal life Gordon is an advocate for diversity and inclusivity of women in STEM, She is also a global ambassador at the IWEC Foundation and serves as a member on the Advisory Council of Questacon.