The drive to serve and give back has been embedded in Benje Williams since childhood. The second child of a European-American mother and an African-American physician father, he soon saw his family grow by eight more –– all youths his parents adopted from the adoption system in California. “My parents felt like they had a responsibility to make a difference in the world and that adopting kids into their family was perhaps how they could most profoundly do that,” says Williams.

Williams searched for ways to make his own contribution throughout his adolescence. When his father took him to Kenya as an undergraduate business administration major at UC Berkeley, he began to find his path. “Going to slum communities throughout Nairobi, I spoke with many people my age who had business ideas. Most of them were practical and relatively straightforward to implement, but I felt like they would likely remain just dreams unless these young folks could get a small amount of support,” Williams says. The idea for helping youth in developing countries bring their career aspirations to fruition began to take root.

Williams’ journey led him eventually back to Kenya, where he worked with one of his best friends to help locals in the Mathare slum build and take ownership of an education information technology resource center designed to economically empower the local community. He also lived in Pakistan for a year, where he worked with Acumen Fund as a Global Fellow. Responsible for hiring and training marketing officers at a social enterprise in Lahore, he saw first-hand the gap between workforce preparation and business needs. 

Looking to develop ideas, a team, and resources to become a social entrepreneur in developing countries, Williams enrolled in the MBA program at Stanford, where he met Kunal Chawla, an MA student at the Graduate School of Education. Chawla had taught sixth grade science in India, helped build Google’s online education platform, and worked at an Acumen-funded education social enterprise in India. “We realized how closely aligned our passions and values were, and decided to work on a project together,” says Williams, who has also worked with Acumen as a consultant and intern in India, Kenya, and New York. He has consulted for nonprofits and banks at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and worked on development projects for Dalberg Global Development Advisors in South Africa and TechnoServe in Kenya, as well. Moving into the space of providing soft skills for employment seemed a natural fit for the two entrepreneurs. 

Although Pakistan’s educational and economic problems are huge and systemic, Williams and Chawla are confident that Amal Academy will make a difference. “I used to be intimidated and almost frozen by the scope of the issue, but, as a mentor of mine says, it’s important to just start somewhere and let the work teach you,” Williams says. “Perfection is the enemy of progress. You just have to jump in and do it.”