56 TIME March 1/March 8, 2021
SOHLAEL-WAYLLY35 • Culinary impactBY CARLA HALLWorking in restaurants as a person
of color, I know what it’s like to be
overqualifi ed and underpaid and
unseen. When Sohla El-Waylly, a
talented chef and restaurateur, spoke
out about racism and pay discrimination
at Bon Appétit last year, and when she—
alongside several colleagues—called on
editor in chief Adam Rapoport to resign
after a photo of him wearing brownface
surfaced online, she stood up not just for
herself but for all employees of color who
have felt undervalued. By giving voice
to experiences that are all too common
in the food world, she helped spark a
needed conversation about inequality
in the industry and dispelled the notion
that we are alone in our suff ering. Sohla
shows how to excel in one’s own truth,
both in speaking up and in her inventive
approach to food. She’s not afraid to
change up traditional recipes to suit
her specifi c tastes. Now, she’s working
on new projects, including a YouTube
culinary- challenge series called Stump
Sohla. I’m excited to see where she takes
her talents next.Hall is a chef and writerNSÉ UFOT40 • HELPING
GEORGIA VOTEBY AI-JEN POOHow do you face down voter
suppression, threats of white-
supremacist violence at the polls
and massive disinformation
campaigns—during a pandemic—
to ensure an unprecedented
number of voters show up for the
most important elections of our
lifetime, twice? Ask Nsé Ufot. Born
in Nigeria, raised in Southwest
Atlanta, Nsé is a child of the South
and a true believer in the voters of
Georgia.
Under Nsé’s kind, creative
and determined leadership,
the New Georgia Project—a
civic-engagement nonprofi t
founded in 2013 by Stacey
Abrams—has worked alongside
fellow grassroots organizations
in the state to register hundreds
of thousands of Georgians to
vote. She helped ensure that
Georgia’s diverse communities
had what they needed to vote
and vote safely in both the
2020 presidential election
and the 2021 Georgia Senate
runoffs—all while leveraging
technology and gaming culture to
engage young voters and doing
the irreplaceable, hard work of
reaching voters behind every door,
in every corner of the state. In
doing so, she has helped breathe
new life into our democracy,
showing us that it is both possible
and up to us to create.Poo is the executive director of
the National Domestic Workers
AllianceOlugbenga
Agboola
35 • Bolstering small
businesses
In 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns
across the world hit brick-
and-mortar businesses hard.
Africa’s small shops and
restaurants, very few of which
have an online presence, were
particularly vulnerable. Enter
Flutterwave, a tech startup
based in San Francisco and
Lagos, Nigeria, that is known
for helping companies process
customers’ online transactions
during checkout. Amid lockdown,
Flutterwave expanded from
specializing in digital cash
registers to hosting digital
storefronts, helping some 20,000
small businesses suddenly
without foot traffi c set up online
shops, receive payments and
arrange delivery options. “We
called it ‘Keeping the Lights
On,’” says Olugbenga Agboola,
Flutterwave’s co-founder and CEO,
who lives in Washington, D.C.
The company processed more
than 80 million trans actions,
worth $7.5 billion, in 2020,
establishing it as Africa’s premier
payment- solution provider. Now
Flutterwave—which already
has a presence in 17 African
countries—is planning to leverage
that momentum into greater
expansion, so that a customer
in South Africa, for example, can
seamlessly use her Kenyan digital
wallet to buy products in Senegal.
“Africa is not a country,” says
Agboola. “But we make it feel
like one.” —Aryn Baker
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