Amarachi Ezekiel

I'm currently a junior at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, where I'm majoring in computer science. This year, I founded the Cave Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting young women between the ages of [AGE] and [AGE] in Nigeria who want to pursue non-traditional career paths. Because I'm an international student, my mom is listed as the founder on paper, but this is truly my brainchild and passion project. Growing up in West Africa, I experienced firsthand how difficult it is to get support when you want to pursue a path that doesn't fit conventional expectations of success. I've always had strong interests in dancing and writing alongside my technical studies, but faced limitations in pursuing everything I was passionate about due to financial constraints and lack of general support. My expertise lies in being able to relate to what young African and Nigerian women go through when trying to find their career path and define success on their own terms, even when it looks different from what everyone else expects. Last year, I had the incredible opportunity to intern at Boston Consulting Group, which was a pivotal experience for me. As someone from a non-target HBCU who isn't a business or finance major, working alongside people from MIT, Harvard, and other prestigious schools showed me that what truly differentiates us is our intellectual capacity, not where we're from or our gender. Right now, my day-to-day responsibilities include reviewing scholarship applications, responding to inquiries about the foundation, and managing operations. I'm currently funding the scholarship out of pocket as we're just starting out, but I'm hoping to secure additional funding so we can offer scholarships biannually and continue growing our impact.