Bef Ayenew

Bef Ayenew is an Ethiopian-American entrepreneur and technologist. Bef is the co-founder of ArifSoft, a software development company that specializes in mobile and web solutions for Diaspora communities. Bef is also the advisor at Chapa, a social media platform for the African diaspora.

Bef has over 15 years of experience in the technology industry. Bef began their career as an architect and team lead at Naehas, a marketing automation platform. Bef then went on to co-found ArifSoft, where they served as the CTO for over 10 years. During their time at ArifSoft, they built mobile and web solutions for Diaspora communities in multiple verticals, including event/news aggregation, music, and social networking. Bef's flagship product, ArifZefen, is the pre-eminent music app for the Ethiopian community and has been downloaded over 2M times on iOS and Android.

In 2011, Bef was invited to present at Secretary Clinton’s Global Diaspora Forum in Washington, DC, where they shared their vision for building mobile products that can serve as a hub for the African diaspora at large.

Bef holds a degree in Computer Science from Addis Ababa University.

Bef Ayenew has a Master of Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science from the same school in Mathematics, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.

Ayenew also has a certification in Unconscious Bias from LinkedIn.