Deborah Allotey

Consultant, Designer, Global soul, Idea generator, Potential employer, Startup, Student, World traveler, Writer/Editor

My full name is Deborah Naa Adorkor Allotey. I am currently a graduate student and teaching /research assistant at Western University, Ontario, Canada. Ever since I was a child, I have always been enthusiastic and fascinated about languages, their origin, flexibility and interconnections. This is the major motivation for my interest in research into languages and Linguistics. It is not surprising therefore that I am enrolled in an academic discipline that involves all of these and more. In the future, I hope to be a successful Linguist and a professional language analyst, theoretically accounting for varied linguistic patterns and the inter-relatedness of diverse components of a language unto an understanding of the structure of of specific languages and language in general. I intend to be a significant factor in the advancement of my chosen field, contributing to solving language challenges faced in industry, speech recognition and machine translation. Through teaching and research I hope to meaningfully advance and impact society ultimately.

Societal Development! At an individual level , I love to contribute in anyway I can to improve the quality of human life. At a community based level, I love to involve myself in societal movements, endeavors, awareness schemes to help make the world a better place. I may not always have all the resources or have the great ideas but I love to be part of the little movements that change people's lives for the better and eventually change the world.

I love Afrocentric fashion and efforts made to solve a problem of the community always piques my interest. This unspoken proclivity drives me to volunteer hands on my youthful enthusiasm, intellect, positive energy, skills and expertise to contributing my quota to society. So on one such volunteer trip to Srafa, a village community in New Ebu Central Region, Ghana, I was to meet a scene that will change the course of my young life drastically. This trip was a medical outreach organized by young doctors who recently graduated from Medical School and sought to give free medical screening/consultation to a people-group in Ghana who desperately needed medical assistance. Although I did not have a medical background, I was eager to help in any way I could and be part of a story that "brought smiles to distressed faces." During one of the med sessions, I saw beautiful jewelry made from polished "alansa" seeds. “Alansa” is the local name for the “African Star Apple Fruit”. I thought to myself, “What amazing jewelry! The world ought to see!” This rural community taught me that beauty and usefulness can be made out of anything and that what is termed “waste” can be relative. Like a stack of dominoes, this ignited the desire to continually create, market and sell similar artifacts made from local raw materials to a larger audience. I then founded Debbie's GH, a fashion brand with the aim of promoting the local artisan sector of Ghana by crafting quality handmade clothing, accessories and souvenirs and making it accessible to a wider market. The aim of Debbie’s is to show that raw materials can be from authentic, original, indigenous, African sources and need not always be from imported sources; and that with a bit of creativity, exquisite designs can be made for the world to appreciate. Our mantra at Debbie's is Original, African, Exquisite. I hope to continue expanding Debbie's in a cultural activist's attempt to make Ghana-made products attractive to Ghanaians , Africans and hopefully by extension to the rest of the world. My dream for Debbie's is to be a world hub for accessing quality African souvenirs, designs and fashion.

Computational Linguistics, Data Analysis, Design, Emotional Intelligence, Event Planning, Fashion, Languages, Media, Public Speaking, Research, Syntax, Teaching

I have always loved being a part of a story. It gives me pleasure and fulfillment to help bring a worthy cause to successful fruition. In 2015, I was happy to be called by my friend Leslie Addae to be a part of the organization of the first ever TEDx event held in Accra. I was in charge of contacting speakers for the event. This was a job that needed strong networking skills and a demeanor that spoke of eloquence and capability. I was able to lead a team to bring together twenty-five stellar Ghanaian individuals blazing the trail in different aspects of endeavor from science and technology to media, music and fashion. On April 23, 2016 we launced a succesful TEDx event which saw about 1500 people attending. Later more recently in 2018, I was glad to be part of TEDx Afariwaa, a vibrant cohort of young achievers led by Charles Mensah who are in the business of bringing societal awareness to negative societal narratives and rethinking societal norms in Afariwaa, a surburb of Tema, Ghana. I was excited to be a part of the cohort to plan the 2018 edition of TEDxAfariwaa on 4th August, 2018. I served in similar position as Lead of Speaker and Guest Management. It goes without saying that the program went extremely well with many young people motivated and poised for higher ideals in life as well as chanced with a platform for effective communication and networking. I have since been a part of TEDx events offering consultation and coordination assistance to other TEDx events organised in Ghana.

Math and Computers! I am good at Python, R and LaTeX. These are a part of my work and research as a computational linguist. Everything tech-related just gets me wide eyed with interest and amazement!