Sunday, March 04, 2007

What about Africa?

While considering an internship offer from one of the big Internet companies, i strangely find myself contemplating on a completely different endeavor; What about working on helping the poor of East Africa. What a jump?!

While thinking about getting an internship as a product or marketing manager at companies like Yahoo!, Google, and Amazon, I am find myself thinking what about going to Kenya or Tanzania and working with a
company like One Acre or Acumen Fund that aim at eliminating poverty at these places.

The question that i am finding hard to answer is; where can i have the most meaningful impact on people's lives. Should i work directly on the problems of the poor by joining int' development organizations, or will I have more impact by leading hugely successful yet socially responsible for profit businesses?

Something to think about for the next few weeks.

2 comments:

mahmoud said...

sometimes we can help more through the indirect long term direction..
the problem with most people who have good intentions is that they drift while in the indirect path..

i've thought about this a lot... everlasting confusion...

Ziad Mokhtar said...

Yes, drifting is a big concern. But this mainly happen because people put themselves in places where there is not clear path for contribution.

It might be reasonable to think you need to be extremely wealthy or powerful first to be able to do something. Like what Bill Gates is doing now. But you never end up there.