NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, August 1, 2016

LOS ANGELES— As an American high school student, John Cefalu never imagined he would be in the business of creating entrepreneurs in Africa, but a trip to Kenya changed his worldview.

Cefalu was in Kenya on a service project, delivering school supplies and water filters to an orphanage. The lack of sanitation for the children and the future that awaited them bothered him.

It was “just the general lack of opportunity that a lot of these kids had, mainly in the high school graduate range, just struggling to find work,” Cefalu said.

He wanted to do more to help the people he met, but the opportunity didn’t arise until his first year in college. He was injured while playing football for his college team. Unable to play, he spent his free time developing a plan to help.