Futures Inc was founded in 2019 with a passion to leave the world a lot better than we inherited it. Our work takes us to many places from our home base in Tokyo, Japan; Philippines, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Malawi, India, Guyana, etc., primarily to develop carbon offset projects. We also have a decarbonization advisory business in Japan working with large listed companies on their carbon reduction and carbon offset plans. ​We leverage technology and financial markets for large scale social and environmental impact in a profitable manner. We leverage the power of our own experience, and our people networks across the world to make this happen.

The "Planning" job involves three parts; a strategic part around looking at role of supply chain within the broader country strategies, an operational part that look at how our food moves/managed/reported on along with the funds for logistics, and an end-to-end visibility/analytics part across plan/source/delivery; all three with a clear impact on cost savings, agility, and on-time deliveries. The "retail supply chains" results from the big move of WFP towards giving people cash to buy their food and other essentials in local retail. Local retail in many contexts, are inefficient for a variety of reasons and hence result in higher prices and/or lower availability of nutritious items, etc. This unit works on proactively fixing the inefficiencies and getting WFP cash beneficiaries more for their money (quantity and quality). Both of the above are more and more being used by Governments for their own cash/food programmes, which in the near future, will have an impact on many more people than direct WFP beneficiaries.

In-charge of Food, Goods & Services, and Cash-based Transfers, and overall procurement strategy. Direct spend of around $ 1.7 billion per year combined with influencing retail transfers of $ 800 million/year. Goals include on-time deliveries, cost-savings, process streamlining, and connecting smallholders to commercial supply chains. Two key foundations of my work are around "risk management" and "talent management".

Exploring options to optimize significant levels of WFP procurement to be able to generate large savings on delivery time, cost, and administrative burden. Designing solutions for pro-smallholder farmer food procurement at scale and commercial viability.

Technology solutions for sustainability: Starting with Offset4Poor smartphone app -http://www.mahamack.com/offset4poor.html - measures a person's carbon footprint from driving, flying, home-use and allows them to track/reduce over time. Given a billion smartphones out there, and around 30-50% of folks in the developed world saying global warming is of serious concern and willing to pay for it (between $ 15 to 40 per ton of CO2); if the app can be "popularized" (and big and difficult "if" indeed!) - can also be huge in terms of employing poor people in developing countries.

Coordinating operations across Northern Sudan (ex-Darfur). Food assistance to about 1.7 million people. Testing newer programs/ideas such as cash vouchers, connecting farmers2markets, carbon credits and government handover of programs.

I was in-charge of managing operations to feed around 4 million people during the peak hunger season in North Korea with about 100,000 tons of food assistance.

Supporting WFP Latin American country offices with program design, monitoring, and implementation issues.

I worked as head of Operations in Korea supporting around 6 million people with about 350,000 tons of food assistance. A lot of my work involved ensuring that food reach those who most need it, within a complex political environment I then went to Philippines for 5.5 months to re-start WFP operations in Mindanao for those affected by the conflict.

Supported 12 country offices across Asia region with primarily "vulnerability analysis and mapping" services in order to efficiently target food assistance programs. I travelled extensively across Asia for weeks on end, including having the opportunity to work as an emergency coordinator during the floods in Bangladesh, and the Tsunami in Sri Lanka for a month each.

I was responsible for targeting limited food assistance to about those who needed it most using mapping and statistical analysis tools. The end goal was to support 1.7 million food insecure people with programs that helped them get over their hunger gap.

My Ph.D thesis was a combination of economic development, econometrics, and remote sensing analysis; to look at food and markets in Ethiopia.Research Fellowship at Idrisi Labs was about designing exercises for learning/using Idrisi GIS software, assisting with product testing, and supporting new module development.