Most 17-year-old boys are too busy playing sports, and finishing high school to think about becoming a millionaire, but British born Todd Hadfield made his first fortune at just that age. Creating Soccer.net while still in high school, he sold it to ESPN in the states for 40 million dollars. The now 25 year old soon to be Harvard grad is now setting his sites on something more poignant. Malaria.
Hadfield’s new website, MalariaEngage.org, was inspired by a trip he made to Zambia last summer. “Traveling across Africa and seeing the devastation caused by malaria made me realize there was more to life than putting up soccer scores,” he humbly stated. The political science student claims that everyone he met in Zambia either had a child who died of the disease, or knew someone who had.
He also traveled to Tanzania to meet up with researchers working on treatments, but realized their lack of resources was holding them back. The website aims to earn money towards providing these tools and create awareness that Malaria is a preventable disease. It focuses on 7 research projects in Tanzania that need more support. The site also “increases the return on investment of donors by connecting them directly with researchers working on malaria prevention treatment,” added Hadfield.
Hoping his project will create more than more funds, but a way to connect minds and ideas together, he aims to spark interest in communities that wasn’t there before. Hadfield’s co-founder Peter A. Singer stated, “We feel young African scientists have very good ideas that end up in the dustbin. This is about helping committed young researchers with good ideas to help themselves create a better future.” They hope the site will spread knowledge as well as raise enough money to achieve their goals.
His goal is to fully fund the 7 Tanzanian projects with help of Malaria Engage, and then go on to support other problems within developing countries. He is due to marry in November.
For someone so young to spend his fortune on something of this magnitude is indeed refreshing. The young entrepreneur was awarded the Global Leader of Tomorrow award by the World Economic Forum in Switzerland 7 years ago. He certainly appears to continue living up to his title.
Read more about Heal on WeEarth’s Voices E-Zine. Click Here.
