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Thomas Varghese: Strategic Investor, Company Builder, and Global Citizen

our updates Jan 25, 2022

#ICANHELP is lucky to have, and happy to welcome, Thomas Varghese to the team!

Thomas Varghese is the newest addition to #ICANHELP’s board. He is our new Governance and Nomination Committee Chair and brings with him decades of experience serving communities across the globe. He is primarily concerned and passionate about education, social justice, and solving the issues that face our communities. Thomas plans to use his “head-on attitude” to bring about positive change to the lives of youth through working with #ICANHELP.

In the early 2010s, Thomas perceived a lack of respect for students in education. He noticed students were being taught to, lectured to, and quizzed at every step of the way, but where was the passion for learning? To right this wrong, Thomas helped co-develop a non-profit elementary school called Ventana School in 2012 aimed at developing intellectually curious kids. In 2015, he co-founded Young Outliers, an innovative summer program that helps teens discover their passions, develop their true potential, and inspires them to create a better world. By doing so Thomas hopes to empower teens to take control of their own destiny.

With a background such as Thomas’s it's no surprise that Young Outliers and Ventana School grew to be successful organizations. He also served as a mentor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, worked as a founding board member at multiple startups, and on the Board of Trustees to Classical Voice. San Francisco Classical Voice is a globally recognized journal serving the California Arts community with the highest-quality, free, original journalism, something that Thomas has a passion for and hopes to inspire future generations to rediscover classical music.

When asked how he plans to incorporate his past experiences from other nonprofit boards into his work at #ICANHELP, Thomas responded by identifying #ICANHELP as an excellent way to scale up his dream of helping youth. Thomas sees #ICANHELP’s peer-driven model as an extremely effective way to maximize efforts to change the lives of youth across the world.

Thomas’s passion for creating real and tangible change becomes immediately apparent even after a short discussion. It’s clear to see that his head-on attitude is no joke, and apparently comes from a revelation during his days in high school that change would not happen on its own. To create a more equitable world for the betterment of all, he must take action. And so he did, and continues to do so!

It is for these reasons that #ICANHELP is lucky to have such a talented, and  experienced individual joining our team.

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