FRANCESCA RAOELISON

PEER ENTREPRENEUR IN RESIDENCE

Francesca Raoelison is originally from Madagascar and came to the U.S. six years ago. She is a transfer student from the Northern Virginia Community College and a rising senior concentrating in Sociology, through the Organizational Studies Track. During the summer of 2019, she founded Omena, a non-profit organization committed to increasing emotional abuse awareness starting in her home country Madagascar’s educational system by providing tools for students to combat and stand up to abuse. Francesca launched the venture as a participant in the Breakthrough Lab 2019 cohort, and she initially focused on solving this problem in Madagascar. But she quickly learned that this is a global issue to solve. Omena currently has 100+ volunteers scattered around the world (13 countries and counting)

Francesca is a TEDx speaker and was named RI Inno’s 25 under 25. Their work has been featured by MTV, The Boston Globe, supported by the Clinton Foundation and Forbes Under 30. In 2020, Omena won The Davis Project For Peace and competed for the TigerLaunch Pitch competition Final rounds at Princeton University.

In 2021, the organization was one of the top 8 in the Brown Venture Prize and runner-up winner for the Bay Area Global Health Challenge 2021.

At Brown, in addition to working with Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship, she is a Social Innovation Fellow with the Swearer Center and the Social Enterprise Greenhouse (SEG), a Social Entrepreneurship TA, and also works as a community dialogue facilitator. In her free time, you will catch her enjoying singing or outdoor activities such as hiking, going to the beach, or biking.