The 2014 Bikila Award Winners

Dr. Taffara Deguefé was born in the hamlet of Genda-Wuha, Ankober district, Northern Shoa, Ethiopia on June 15, 1926.

At the age of seven, Taffara was sent to Addis Ababa to start his schooling with a priest. In 1934, he was enrolled in l’Alliance Française..Due to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 his studies were interrupted. During the following five years of the Italian occupation, he discovered he had an ear for languages and learned to speak and gradually read both Russian and Italian.  On March 1, 1944, at the age of 18, Taffara began his first job as a filing clerk with the State Bank of Ethiopia.

In 1945 he was sent to the Haile Selassie I Secondary School in Kotobe to supplement his sketchy education. Taffara was then sent to Canada to pursue his studies.

In 1946 arrived in Calgary, Alberta to study accounting and secretarial courses at the Garbutt Business College. After obtaining commercial diplomas in one year, he enrolled at the University of British Columbia and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Commerce. He applied himself to law at both UBC and at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor before returning to the State Bank of Ethiopia as an attorney in 1952. He maintained his study and in 1955 he took his diploma in law from University College of Addis Ababa.

In 1955, his was appointed as Director General of Civil Aviation. His job included expanding the activities of the national airline outside Ethiopia, converting grass fields to serve as small airports in the towns of Gore, Debre Marcos, and Motta, and designing and delivering training programs for both Ethiopian Airlines and Civil Aviation.

In 1958, Taffara was appointed manager of the newly created branch of the State Bank of Ethiopia, in Khartoum. In 1961, he was promoted to the position of Manager of the State Bank of Ethiopia - the first Ethiopian to hold this position. Taffara was appointed the chief executive of the Commercial Bank. By 1974, the bank had grown to a total of 100 branches and was internationally recognized as the leading financial institution in the country. 

Taffara became an active participant in many organizations and served as President of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce, Honorary Treasurer of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Honorary Consul General of Norway, amongst others.  He still is a dedicated Rotarian. He also served as the Chairman of the Ethio-Dutch Sugar Company, and as the Financial Controller of the Franco- Ethiopian Railway Company, Taffara was appointed Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia. During the rule of the military dictatorship in Ethiopia he was arrested and put under political detention for five years and seven months. He left Ethiopia in 1982 and has lived in voluntary exile ever since. 

From 1982 to 1994, he worked as a financial adviser and banking consultant in Swaziland and Zimbabwe. He retired to Vancouver in 1994 at the age of 68.

Over the last 20 years he returned several times to Ethiopia as a guest for the inauguration of private banks, anniversary celebrations, and international meetings. He has also participated in conferences organized by the Intra-Africa Group at the in Africa Hall or the U.N. Conference Centre. 

Tafarra loves reading and collected an extensive library composed of books in Amharic, English, French, Italian, and Russian. In addition to contributing articles to trade and professional journals, he was a frequent speaker at international banking and economic forums. In 1959, he published an essay on Capital Formation in Ethiopia under the auspices the Addis Ababa University College which received favourable reviews.

He is also the author of three books, A Guide to Service - a collection of speeches; A Tripping Stone - an Ethiopian prison diary; and Minutes of an Ethiopian Century - recollections of key events in Ethiopia and a life of service.Taffara has been the recipient of many awards and decorations including the medal of Grand Officer of the Order of Menelik, the Order of Merit of the French Republic, and the medal of Knight of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit. In 1974, he was granted a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa by the University of British Columbia.

Bikila Award congratulates Dr. Taffara Dequefe for being selected as the 2014 Life Time Award Winner for his distinguished contribution to the Development of Banking Services in Ethiopia and his Exemplary Life Experiences.

Dr. Kibret Mequanint is a Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering & Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, London Ontario, Canada. He joined Western in 2003 as Assistant Professor, become Associate Professor in 2009 and Professor in 2014.

His laboratory is engaged in the design of novel materials for medical devices, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine applications - in particular for cardiovascular disease treatment. He has authored and co-authored more than 110 research publications and conference proceedings, and issued 4 US and international patents which are already commercialized.

He has delivered more than 50 invited talks at major international conferences and institutions. Professor Mequanint embodies the growing influence of chemical engineers in life sciences and made a distinguished contribution in biopolymer technologies and the applications of chemical engineering principles to medicine. His work is both transformative and translational. One of the transformative research he conducted in radiation distribution mapping for cancer treatment has been licensed and commercialized in 2013.

His contributions to regenerative medicine research and education have been recognized by a number of prestigious awards such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation Award (2004), Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation Research Excellence Award (2007), R. Mohan Mathur Award for Excellence in Teaching (2011), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Discovery Accelerator Award (2012), and the Faculty Scholar Award (2014). 

Bikila Award congratulates Dr. Kibret Mequanint for being selected as the 2014 Professional Excellence Award Winner for his distinguished contribution to Biopolymer Technologies and the application of Chemical Engineering principles to medicine.

Clare Pain MD, MSc., FRCPC is an Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto; Director of the Psychological Trauma Program, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto.

She consults at the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture, Toronto, and is the Director of the Toronto Addis Ababa Psychiatry Project (TAAPP) and Co-ordinator of the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC) www.taaac.ca under which there are currently 16 educational partnerships between the University of Toronto and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia.

TAAAC partners to strengthen capacity and sustainability in post graduate training at AAU. In July 2014 she was conferred with an Honorary Doctor of Science by Addis Ababa University. She has lectured and taught on various aspects of psychological trauma including trans-cultural issues and increasingly on global mental health.

She has published a number of articles and two books: “Trauma and the Body: a Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy” with Pat Ogden and Kekuni Minton Norton 2006 and “The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic” an edited book with Eric Vermetten and Ruth Lanius, Cambridge University Press 2010.

Bikila Award congratulates Dr. Clare Pain for being selected as the 2014 Professional Excellence Award Winner in Psychiatry and exemplary contribution to the Development of Mental Health Services in Ethiopia.

Dr. Gelila Tilahun, a mother of two young children, was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. After completing her undergraduate and graduate degrees in mathematics at Concordia and McGill Universities in Montreal, respectively, she moved to Toronto where she completed her doctoral studies in statistical sciences at the University of Toronto in 2011.

Her doctoral thesis focused on developing statistical methods for text analysis. This work was motivated by problems that arose in analyzing medieval English documents dating from about 1066 A.D to 1350 A.D. The challenge she was presented with was, given a database of very few dated documents, was it possible to develop a statistical method that could be automated to accurately date undated documents?

In collaboration with the DEEDS (Documents of England Data Set) centre headed by professors M. Gervers and A. Feuerverger, University of Toronto, and professor P. Hall, Australian National University, Dr. Gelila developed statistical methods that revolutionized the work for historians. As a wider application, the methods she developed have the potential to identify forged documents, document place of origin, as well as to establish document authorship. Dr. Gelila hopes that the statistical dating methods can be applied to analyze Ethiopic and Ge’ez manuscripts.

Dr. Gelila research work has been reviewed by the MIT Technology Review and has been published in leading statistical journals and presented at statistical conferences in Canada and the U.S. Her work has also been presented at archival conferences in France and Italy. The popular press, such as NBCNEWS.com, and the University of Toronto News, has also reviewed her work.

She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in bio-informatics, also at the University of Toronto. Her research focused on the application of statistical methods in text analysis to identify the non-coding regions of the DNA that are responsible for turning genes on or off. Her recent academic devotions in the application of computational and statistical techniques to biological data processing and analysis, particularly in genomics is exemplary to our youth in the community.

Bikila Award congratulates Dr. Gelila Tilahun for being selected as the 2014 Professional Excellence Award Winner for her distinguished contribution to For her research in developing statistical computer techniques that have revolutionized historical document dating.

Recently described by industry watchers as “a uniquely talented artist who is driven and dedicated to his work,” Abel Tesfaye, known by stage name as “the Weeknd” had an almost impossible dream: to be a recording artist.

Despite all odds, he has tenaciously pursued this dream and achieved international success performing in Canada, the US and Europe and winning prestigious awards including the Juno.

This Ethiopian-Canadian singer-songwriter may be just 24-year-old, but he is already a force to be reckoned with. He will be honoured at Canada’s Walk of Fame Show next month for his contribution to music in Canada. Fame has not slowed down the kid from Scarborough.

He has launched his own record label and is currently on North American “King of the Fall” tour.

Bikila Award congratulates Mr. Abel Tesfaye for being selected as the 2014 Professional Excellence Award Winner for his outstanding achievement as a Singer/Songwriter and pursuing his dream in Music.

Alpha Abebe was born in Toronto, Canada to Ethiopian parents and has grown up deeply embedded in the Ethiopian community. Alpha holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies, a Graduate Diploma in Refugee and Migration Studies from York University, and an Honours BA from the University of Toronto.

Alpha is currently pursuing a PhD at the Department of International Development at Oxford University, London, England. Her research explores how and why young members of the Ethiopian diaspora in North America engage in development practice and discourse in Ethiopia. She expects to complete her Doctoral studies in 2014.

Bikila Award congratulates Alpha Abebe for being selected as the 2014 Academic Excellence Award Winner for her outstanding academic achievement in her Undergraduate as well as Graduate Studies and her pursuit of Doctoral Studies.

Martha Ghebreselassie has an excellent secondary academic background. She is a student that has maintained an honour roll standing (85% or higher) each and every year at R.H. Academy.

The results of her school projects were excellent and she has superior research and communications skills. She has extensive extra-curricular activities and community involvement. Despite hardships and financial difficulties she has become stronger and is continuing her efforts to achieve her dream in pursuing her post-secondary education in science to ultimately become a physician.

Bikila Award congratulates Martha Ghebreselassie for being selected as the 2014 Academic Excellence Award Winner for her outstanding academic results in Secondary Education.sem>