Osman Siddiqi is an innovator, passionate and diligent individual. Born in Pakistan on 8th June 1987, he started from a humble background. As a young boy, he had a lot of aspirations and dreams. He first thought of being an astronaut and even possibly joining the forces as a fighter pilot. With time he grew a profound interest in exploring the world and wanted to be a palaeontologist. Like every young adult, we wanted to get involved in sport, economics, science and technology. Siddiqi was unique because he actually wanted to try it all and this laid a background for him.
Osman Siddiqi Early Life
With quite a lot of aspiration, Osman decided to pursue a degree in economics at McGill University, Canada. During his undergraduate days, he was part of the founding members of the Sri Lankan Association of the University. After graduation, Osman was recruited by global health research giant, Interactive Research and Development, where he was posted as a research associate in Pakistan and within two years, a senior associate in Zimbabwe.
In 2013, he joined Pakistan based Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) as a Design and Evaluation Manager. In that same year, he got accepted at Harvard University for a public administration in international development degree at the postgraduate level. While he was studying, he took the advantage to join various communities, associations and attend programs. He was a Fellow at Code for South Africa for a year and was awarded the Pforzheimer Fellowship at Harvard.

After Masters Degree
Osman Siddiqi completed his master’s degree in 2015 and returned to Pakistan to utilize his knowledge gained. He joined LeapFrog Investments, a UK based investment company as an Insights Associate. His passion for the health sector brought him back to Africa. He joined Innovations for Poverty Action as the Country Manager for Sierra Leone and Liberia. After 3 years, he left to join Instiglio to create an African team.
At Instiglio, Osman achieved huge success for the team and led the expansion plan with purpose. He led Instiglio’s first expansion outside of Colombia; developed Africa regional strategy; led business development and external engagements, and set up systems. He also structured a Government of Kenya Task Force including high-level government stakeholders from the President’s office and key ministries. With his great success, he believes so much in Teamwork and acknowledges all members that made this a reality.
Joining Arifu
You wonder, what else can this champ offer?
He joined Arifu in late 2019 as a Director of Research and Impact. Within 3 years, Osman Siddiqi’s impact has greatly affected the goals of the Kenyan based Edutech company. Having already gathered experience from various organizations, Osman was tasked to build a department from scratch that is agile, effective, and linked with each unit of the company. He’s currently the Chief Impact Officer and oversees how to make Arifu more Impactful in Kenya and expanding to other African soil.
Osman Siddiqi Life
Osman Siddiqi is a great fan of cricket, just like anybody from Pakistan. He admires Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and the West Indies. He acknowledges India to be an incredible team but traditionally, he supports them when they play against Australia or England. As a tech bro, he’s a lover of esports. We expected that though (smiles).
He loves travelling and picked up joy in taking photographs, don’t forget he actually wanted to pursue this as a career path initially. He loves cats and dogs but various reasons won’t make him keep them. For the people aspiring to join the tech world, Osman believes that “good tech is almost always an enabler of solutions that otherwise did not exist. The best tech will solve the most problems for most stakeholders with the greatest simplicity.” He wants you to join Arifu and build as they aim to disrupt the tech space.
His view about Africa Techspace Future
All the pieces are there. There is growing funding in more geographies than just Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Most ideas will fail, but the ecosystem is rich and there are many that will succeed as those who integrate their ideas within the existing political economies and cultural contexts will thrive. Those who do not, will not have a chance. A company like Arifu is pursuing huge visions with considerable obstacles along the way, but because we work within the market and social contexts, we’re lucky enough so far to say we’ve had more success than failure.
Osman Siddiqi