Industry
Entrepreneurs of the Future: Interview with Karim Abouelnaga
|
Karim Abouelnaga |
Karim Abouelnaga is a junior who is of Egyptian descent but was born and raised where he currently resides, in New York City. He is active in numerous entrepreneurship activities at the School of Hotel Administration, including his own startups. We asked Karim to share his views on the Pillsbury Institute’s entrepreneurial programs and his own views of being an entrepreneur.
1. Karim, your story on the LIFE Insurance website (http://www.lifehappens.org/karim/) tells a remarkable story. How does Cornell fit into your plans?
I didn’t start at Cornell University originally; I started at Baruch College in NYC. But one of the largest reasons I transferred resulted from a trip when I visited here for a medical conference. The alumni who came back to Cornell were so engaging with the students. When I came here I saw that if alumni were willing to travel all the way from China and India to come and hand out a business card, it showed that they really enjoyed their student experience—even if they were not able to offer me a job at that moment. Cornell overall is a unique place—you have the opportunity to study in classes with some of the smartest students and some of the most elite faculty across the world and from there you’re given the resources to not only study, but practice what you do in the classroom outside of the classroom.
2. Can you share some of your ideas about what plans you have after you’ve earned your degree?
I am really interested in business and non-profits and more importantly giving back to students just like me. I grew up in an inner city neighborhood, and I wasn’t as privileged as some of my peers, but I’ve been able to overcome a lot of the adversity because of nonprofits that have stepped in and provided mentorship and professional development resources. I hope to do the same following my graduation. One of my biggest or most general goals is to become a successful businessperson and an influential politician who creates social change. The exact steps on how I am going to get there, I don’t know, but I do know that the decisions that I do make will be tailored towards that goal.
3. Can you tell us a little bit about your nonprofit that you just launched?
I started a nonprofit called Practice Makes Perfect, which resulted from research I had started my freshman year at Baruch College. I was working on the achievement gap when one of my professors came up to me and said that McKinsey and Company published a report that said that the achievement gap is costing us between $310 and $525 billion in GDP each year. The U.S. Census has estimated that by 2023 minority children were going to constitute more than 50 percent of the school age population and that’s where the achievement gap was the greatest. So I came up with an idea of starting a mentorship program – a lot of it was based on the assumptions that I had made and the experiences that I had lived through. One of the first things I did when I got to Cornell was I put a group of friends together who were really passionate about the idea. I could see this group helping me work towards my goal of narrowing the achievement gap. So I contacted a couple mentors and started a program called Practice Makes Perfect. We pair underachieving 4th graders with high achieving 9th graders under the supervision of college interns for an academic intensive seven-week summer program.
4. How does the Pillsbury Institute work into your education? What support or programs do you enjoy?
The Pillsbury Institute in itself attracts a lot of entrepreneurial students and entrepreneurial minded professors who come in. I’ve taken a couple of classes that are sponsored by the Pillsbury Institute, such as Entrepreneurial Management and Professor Jim Quest’s seven-week business plan, or Introduction to Business Plan Class, which is hospitality related. And from there, you’re exposed to a bunch of students and ideas and the environment is very entrepreneurial and that only starts with the people. I’ve also had exposure to a lot of the Advisory Board Members like Liz Ngonzi, and I’ve had a meeting with Lee Pillsbury himself.
5. What kind of extracurricular activities are you involved in? Work? Clubs?
Aside from the nonprofit that I mentioned earlier, I’m also an advocate for the LIFE Foundation; they are a nonprofit that educates people on the importance of life insurance. I’ve had the opportunity to represent them at different conferences across the U.S., specifically for MetLife, NY Life, Allstate, and different life insurance companies. I also co-chair Black Students United on campus, which is the umbrella organization for all the clubs that seek to enhance the student experience for African students. I also co-chair Ithakids, which is the big brother and big sisters organization. For two years now since I’ve been at Cornell, I’ve been matched with a little brother who is 10 years old. In addition to all of the informal mentorship I commit to, I am also a mentor for a program called SWAG (Scholars Working Ambitiously to Graduate), which was started to combat the 75-percent black male graduation rate. I also run in triathlons; last year I ran a triathlon that raised a little bit over $2,000 for the nonprofit I started.
6. Is there a particular area that interests you the most? If so, what?
I am really interested in policy. I’ve always had this feeling that policy had this unique impact. That it can create social change on large scopes and magnitudes and so one day I do hope to become a politician who can successfully write legislation that will help more disadvantaged youth and communities in general and hopefully send more underprivileged students to colleges.
7. What advice would you share with other students?
The first thing I would say is never give up. And when I say never give up, I mean more specifically, be persistent. So despite all the accomplishments, I’ve had two or even three times as many failures. And I think the hardest part is rebounding from it. Once you’ve failed enough times, you’ll get the general trend; like, “OK, I’m going to fail and get up right after.” At every single point of your life you will fail at something, but I think the most important thing is to be able to get up and be able to get up even faster the second and third time you fall.
Karim was also a winner of the Pearson Prize for Higher Education last year, view his video here.