Igniting Rural-Urban Innovation  Igniting Rural-Urban Innovation 

Ms. Ruqayo Kusow is an expert in community and public health development with over 30 years of experience in training and managing healthcare programs. As a Registered Nurse, she worked with several NGOs to deliver health care services in rural communities cut off by the Somali civil unrest. She has extensive experience in research and public policy in developing and providing healthcare services in vulnerable environments. Ms. Kusow has extensively researched entrepreneurship, employment, and employee performance in healthcare services within community settings. She has extensive experience developing and delivering individualized training for health care providers such as nurses, nurse assistants, personal support workers, and case management workers through her home health care agency in Columbus, Ohio.

She also worked in critical and non-critical settings such as senior Stroke, general surgeries, and general medical units in a hospital setting in Somalia, Canada, and the United States of America. Ms. Kusow taught at the Mogadishu College of Nurses and Midwifery. She participated in establishing the Somali National Tuberculosis, Prevention, and Treatment Centers around the country funded by WHO before the collapse of the Somali government. Ms. Kusow holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences in Nursing from the Somali National College of Nursing in Mogadishu and a post-graduate diploma in Tuberculosis Eradication, Post Treatment Programs and Social Reintegration from Bangalore (National Tuberculosis Institute), India. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Windsor.