Biography

Tonny Muzira is a social entrepreneur, human rights advocate, and policy analyst with a deep commitment to social policy. In 2026, the Ontario Human Rights Commission awarded him the Daniel G. Hill Human Rights Award for Distinguished Service, one of three provincial honours announced during the Commission’s 65th anniversary year. The award recognizes his human rights work across housing, health equity, gender justice, and community empowerment for Black immigrant and refugee communities.

He is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the African Canadian Hub for Innovation, STEM and Technology (ACHIST), Canada’s first equity-driven innovation access hub dedicated to advancing the full participation of African-Canadian youth in STEM and AI. At ACHIST, Tonny leads the organization’s vision, strategy, programs, and partnerships. His work rests on the belief that every African-Canadian young person deserves a pathway into Canada’s innovation economy that is culturally affirming, accessible, and designed with their community, not just for it.

Tonny brings more than 10 years of leadership in community innovation, organizational policy, youth empowerment, and equity advocacy across Canada, Uganda, and East Africa. He served as Country Director for the International Youth Alliance for Family Planning and as a national advocacy leader at the Foundation for Male Engagement Uganda. In those roles he built and scaled programs that reached tens of thousands of young people across five regions, and developed expertise in human-centred design, evidence-based program development, and systems-level change.

In Canada, Tonny co-founded the Centre for Black Development Options Canada (CBDOC). There, he played a key role in advocacy during Toronto’s 2023 refugee housing crisis that contributed to a federal emergency housing intervention. He has since continued to advance housing and health equity for Black immigrant and refugee communities, and he has presented policy recommendations to a federal House of Commons standing committee. He is a graduate of Maytree Policy School’s Policy Fellows program and is pursuing a Bachelor of Public Administration in Justice, Law, and Public Policy at York University.

As a Black African newcomer and refugee who has personally navigated the barriers ACHIST exists to dismantle, Tonny leads from lived experience as much as professional expertise. He knows firsthand what it means to seek belonging in spaces not designed for you. He co-founded ACHIST so that the next generation of African-Canadian innovators, scientists, and leaders never has to.

Tonny is a passionate champion of anti-Black racism frameworks in STEM, inclusive innovation policy, and the transformative potential of African-Canadian youth. Under his leadership, ACHIST is building the bridge between underserved communities and Canada’s innovation future, one young person at a time.