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Billy Alabsi
Bay Area Restaurant Owner
·By: Mbaire
Some people measure life by milestones of success. Billy Alabsi measures it by the willingness to keep moving. After high school in Yemen, he came to America searching for opportunity and the chance to build a better life. Since then, his journey has been shaped by reinvention: building businesses, losing everything, rebuilding, and finding the strength to begin again more than once. Through uncertainty, loss, and chapters that might have left others defeated, Billy has held onto one conviction: difficult seasons do not last forever. Today, in San Francisco, he is building once again, holding tightly to optimism, purpose, and the belief that life can be rebuilt.
Victor Ochieng
Documentary Filmaker
By: Mbaire
Victor Ochieng is not your typical filmmaker. At 33, the Kenyan-born, Bay Area-based documentary filmmaker has gone from mimicking radio journalists as a kid on the streets of Nairobi, earning himself the nickname ‘Presenter,’ to working on Emmy Award-winning productions including PBS’s [Climate California](https://www.pbs.org/video/machina-ex-deo-5sakts/) during his internship at[Northern California Public Media](https://norcalpublicmedia.org/spring-2025-cohort)while studying at the [UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.](https://journalism.berkeley.edu/person/victorochieng/) He once dreamed of becoming a priest. He still wants to spread the word. He just found a bigger pulpit.