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From Colorado to Kenya, Nick Rodrigues’ journey has been all but typical. Graduating from the Leeds School of Business with his MBA in 2014, Rodrigues had his sights set on different goals than most. An aspiring social entrepreneur, Nick wanted to pursue for-profit work that also created social impact on a global scale. With determination and a little help from a connection at the Center for Education on Social Responsibility (CESR), he’s making his dreams a reality.

Dubbed “Silicon Savannah,” Nairobi is the hub of Africa’s technology boom. Rodrigues, who lives and works in the city, expands the use of technology to create opportunities for the rural populations of Africa. He says that courses such as CESR’s Social Entrepreneurship in Emerging Markets and strongly influenced his career goals and helped inspire him to work in Kenya’s bustling capital city, which has quickly achieved billion-dollar potential with its rapidly developing economy and technology infrastructure.

Only a year out of school, Rodrigues has started on a career path that most could only dream of. When asked about his unique journey so far, he said, “I believe there are tremendous blue ocean opportunities in emerging markets and the growing ubiquity of mobile technology is making exponential entrepreneurship a reality.”

Landing in Nairobi

Shortly after graduation, Rodrigues was introduced to . Along with serving on CESR’s External Advisory Board, Hinton is the Global Ethics & Compliance Officer and Associate General Counsel at Google. Hinton mentored Rodrigues and introduced him to the company that would jumpstart his CSR career, BitPesa.

is a payment platform that uses a Bitcoin payments system to send money to East Africa. Rodrigues became head of global sales for the company mid-2014. Over the course of six months, he helped the team successfully close an angel round of $1.1M, doubled global month-over-month sales and expanded their sales footprint to include Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, and the UK. Although he no longer works with the start-up, Rodrigues says he still maintains close relationships with the founders.  

After much success at BitPesa, Rodrigues decided to take his talents to Harambee Capital, a new technology start up. Harambee Capital is an e-commerce platform that aggregates buying power for members to procure in bulk and benefit from wholesale pricing. Like Kayak does for airlines, Harambee also pools the shipping and distribution channels of platform members to enable market access for all members. Their membership includes Colorado-based suppliers delivering income-producing goods and services to rural populations in East Africa. As head of sales, Rodrigues is working on expanding Harambee Capital’s relationships in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Congo.

One of Harambee's pilot clients is Gloria’s Footwear, a shoe company created in Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa. They design handcrafted shoes from scraps and donate half of shoe profits to the . Harambee has assisted them with fundraising, shipping and logistics, and developing an online presence. Recently, they had a and are in the process of scaling their business to keep up with demand.

Harambee means “pull together” in Swahili and the Harambee Capital founders are pulling together a very ambitious global team.  If you want to get involved or learn more, please contact Nick directly at Nicholas@harambeecapital.com or visit their website at harambeecapital.

Interested in Connecting with the CESR Network?

This fall semester, CESR launches its new student group, CESR Fellows. It offers a gateway to CESR’s professional and student network and provides opportunities to receive executive mentorship, experiential learning opportunities, and participate in volunteer activities and CESR career treks. For more info, click !

By Andy Wegleitner, CESR Student Assistant