When Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard Branson asked entrepreneurs to send him world-changing business ideas, a three-person startup in Chicago jumped at the chance.
Mike Tang's company, Raise5, was only a few months old then. It is an online platform where people can buy and sell services, kind of like Craigslist, that launched in February 2012. But instead of keeping the payments, the service providers on Raise5 donate the money to their favorite charities.
"We help people who wouldn't normally be donating to give money to causes," Raise5 tells Business Insider.
Tang and his partners, Shayan Nahrvar and Hassan Hassan beat out 500 other applicants and won a trip to South Africa with Branson himself.
"Raise5 is simple, entrepreneurial and it works. It stood out to me as a perfect example of how anyone can think differently to affect change," Branson has said of their startup.
Nahrvar, Raise5's Chief Development Officer, left on March 1 for Africa and visited two places, Johannesburg and Ulusaba. Branson's Virgin Unites team does a lot of work with emerging entrepreneurs there.
He documented the experience and shared it all with Business Insider.
Fresh off the plane from Chicago! At London’s Heathrow Airport in the Virgin Terminal. Next stop: South Africa.
Landed in Johannesburg at a small airport. It was not your typical airport, it had a very homey cafe atmosphere.
We took a charter flight from the airport to Sir Richard Branson’s private game reserve Ulusaba.
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