Megan Strickland is originally from Arkansas, and she received a bachelor's degree in Public Policy with a minor in Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was the co-chair of the student group Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication, also known as HOPE. She co-founded Talking Sidewalks, a student-run literacy magazine and creative writing workshop for homeless men and women. She directed "The Gorilla," a documentary about the intersection of homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse, and she co-directed "Faces of Franklin: A Portrait of Poverty and Homelessness in Chapel Hill." Megan studied international criminal law during a summer study abroad program in Rwanda. She wrote a Public Policy honors thesis and collected data during a solo trip back to Rwanda. The title of her thesis is Journey to Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Case Study of Business Strategy and Entrepreneurship in Rwanda, and it examines how business strategy can impact the lives and entrepreneurial capacity of beekeepers and coffee farmers in Rwanda