One predominant social issue that led Rama to create the VIP Fund with her business partner was youth employment in the Middle East, or the lack thereof. There was a massive concentration of young people who wanted to work, but there were very few jobs that could absorb them into the job market.

The VIP Fund specifically as a youth venture philanthropy fund that would take investments from high net worth individuals who saw the same problems and wanted to solve them in the same ways she did. Those funds would be put toward a multitude of projects that would work with youth online to educate, mentor, and fund them through their higher education.

Most importantly, those projects would also get them involved in the job market, whether they want to work at an established business or launch a startup project. It was also important that the VIP Fund retained elements that made it relevant and comfortable to young people: experimentation, curiosity, and fun.

One of the main projects to come out of the VIP Fund, edSeed, is a crowdfunding platform to fund higher and continued education for refugee youth. It’s one of the biggest pain points for young people impacted by conflict in the region.

Take Syria, for example. Before the war, they had free university education for everyone. After the war broke out, 9 million refugees were displaced and pushed into neighboring countries, none of which had free university education.

“You had at least 450,000 Syrian students within the span of a couple of years without the ability to fund their university education. Some of them were midstream. Some of them were entering university. Some of them had maybe just one or two courses to finish a medical degree. You can imagine the impact of you not being able to pursue that.”

This generation of youth is supposed to financially sustain their entire community though. Yet, they have no access to education, and severely limited access to a network that can help them succeed. That’s where edSeed steps in. 

Rama started by tapping her personal network, running PR, and doing social media marketing. Soon after, she expanded the footprint of the organization by bringing in a community of donors to volunteer or bring in other network connections to help. 

“Those who have graduated are turning around and donating. Within the ranks, those who are more informed than others in certain areas are mentors and are mentoring others. And I mean, you feel the community coming together and growing.”

Currently, edSeed is still relatively young and focused on building relationships with partners who can take different pieces of the project and elevate them to new levels. But the next phase is coming soon, and it’s centered around automation and creating APIs so they can connect the crowdfunding platform to different tech companies. 

For Rama, this is only the start of a long career in social impact that promises to deliver serious results. Her next exciting project is in the AI world, and that’s as much as she can disclose at the moment. But be sure to come back and check out Cause & Purpose for an update from Rama on this front in the near future.

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