Yann Borgstedt

Who is Yann Borgstedt?

Yann Borgstedt' is a Swiss entrepreneur, born and raised in Geneva, and educated in the United States. In 1996 he co-founded a web design firm Netarchitects that was later sold to Altran Technologies. He then worked for a private fund on the redevelopment of the former United States Airforce base Bentwaters in Suffolk, England. He went on to create, invest and manage a variety of diverse business activities in the fields of real estate development and exhibition handling in France, England and Switzerland.

Yann has since focused on green development projects including the most recent plans for the development of a green neighborhood in Geneva's Praille-Acacias-Vernets district, creating four hundred residential apartments and a green residential tower.

In 2005, Yann started The Womanity Foundation which focuses on women's education, training and development in Afghanistan, Brazil, India, the West Bank, Israel and Morocco. Womanity also includes within its projects, the first radio exclusively for women in the Middle East called Radio NISSA FM. In a further evolution of the work in favour of women’s progress, the WomenChangeMakers’ program was launched in 2009 in order to identify and support social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions to women’s advancement. The program was inspired by the Ashoka model, which Yann became familiar with over the past years, notably through his participation in the Ashoka Support Network in Switzerland and France where he works with the fellow Francois Marty on green social housing.