An Innovator’s Insight

Alexis Bonnell’s message is as compelling as any to cross a TED Talk stage. An innovation evangelist at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Bonnell has grand ideas for how technology can be used to solve global challenges. But she has had a good reason to shun the spotlight: Bonnell was once in the crosshairs of a terrorist group. 

“For a while, I worked on the Middle East peace process, and at one point I was on the Taliban’s most wanted list, so I’ve kept a lower profile,” says the former development and humanitarian executive, who now heads the engagement office in USAID’s U.S. Global Development Lab.

Bonnell’s path toward a global development career was circuitous. 

While pursuing her master’s degree at New York University, Bonnell became the marketing director for the Internet Trade Association. She essentially acted as a translator between Wall Street and the tech industry to help members understand how this new-fangled technology, the Internet, would affect business and society.

From there, Bonnell was headhunted to join the United Nations to coordinate development projects. It was during her first deployment in Afghanistan when the Islamic terrorist group zoned in on her.

Word on the street, she says, was the Taliban didn't like the tall blonde American Christian woman, who was often seen at the construction site of the women's dormitory for Kabul University, a USAID project Bonnell worked on.

“Maybe it was stupidity, but I wasn't smart enough to be scared,” Bonnell says. Instead, she says, she made it a point to walk around that site as often as possible. 

“I figured if I ran away and hid, I couldn't expect any other Afghan woman to step foot there,” she said. “To this day, that project was one of the ones I was most proud of.”

If Afghanistan seemed challenging, Bonnell’s return to Washington to work in government would prove just as tough. 

“In some ways, coming to government is the biggest challenge of all because I came from a series of roles where it was about being decisive and making decisions based on very clear data or project management,” she says. “Government, and USAID especially, is much more convening and collaborative.”

Among the projects she’s taken part in: crowdsourcing initiatives like USAID’s Grand Challenges for preventing the spread of Ebola and increasing early-childhood literacy rates. 

Navigating the red tape in a slow-moving entity hasn’t been easy, she acknowledges. But it hasn’t put a damper on Bonnell’s desire to make a lasting impact. 

There are two ways to “die” in government, she says. 

“You kind of wither away in the bureaucracy or you get shot in the head by poking your head out over the normal way of business,” Bonnell says. “Whenever I leave government, it will probably be from being shot in the head.”