Freda is passionate about the application of engineering and technology to drive innovation and solve nagging development problems in Africa. At AHIC, she provides advice on human-centered design and engineering for health innovation leveraging her experiences in both policy and in practice. 

From a policy perspective, she is the Senior Manager for Infrastructure and Innovation at Accra-based think tank, The African Center for Economic Transformation (ACET). In this role, she works with government, development partners and other stakeholders to address key challenges in areas like digitalization, innovation, skills and manufacturing. She has worked in a number of African countries including Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Mauritius, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone. 
In practice, she has worked in the automotive industry (with General Motors and Toyota), Columbia University Earth Institute’s Millennium Villages Project, Engineers Without Borders, and Blue-Lab Michigan focusing on water purification in the Dominican Republic, Ghana and Honduras. 

In 2013, realizing the need to develop skills in engineering in Ghana, she started the Innovate Ghana Design Competition to encourage students to apply practical engineering knowledge to national development issues. The program focuses on concepts of Design for Development, Engineering and Entrepreneurship to empower the youth to create solutions to the needs of today. To date the program has exposed hundreds of high school and tertiary students to practical problem solving and innovation. She also launched Innovate Labs, a product design start-up specializing in rapid-prototyping and fabrication, to help innovators bring their ideas to life. 

She received her Master in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University; and her B.Sc.E in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan where she focused on product and automotive design.