Eighteen-year-old Stanford University freshman Ima Christian is considered an over-achiever by any measure. But in her view, there is one specific goal that she would like to accomplish and pushing forward through her seemingly endless list of activities each day helps her to clear a path to the ultimate goal of owning her own successful technology startup company.
Ima is the first of four children born to two former Guyana national basketball players, Karen Abrams and Leon Christian. “Both of my parents are deeply rooted in Guyanese culture, even as they’ve each lived more than 20 years in the United States,” Ima says. “From their choice of food to music to close family ties, to a relentless focus on academics, to reading the Guyanese news daily, to a keen interest in local politics, to their friends who visit; Guyanese culture pervades our home. Although born in the United States, I feel like a Guyanese American in my soul.”
Ima is full-time Computer Science Engineering Major at Stanford and an Investment Partner with Dorm Room Fund Inc, a venture capital company created to provide seed funding to college students working on technology startup ideas. She is also currently working with partners on a global startup company in the education space, and is a member of the prestigious Kairos Society, an organization that connects young entrepreneurs who are solving significant problems with corporations, influencers, and strategic investors. Ima is also a member of BASES, the Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students and /dev/color, a community of Black software engineers who help one another achieve ambitious career goals by providing members with the connections and skills needed to start and stay in the industry.
At Stanford, Ima finds herself at the centre of a vibrant startup community with close ties to Silicon Valley and as she works each day to achieve her career goals, she remains keenly focused on using her role at Dorm Room Fund to encourage more underrepresented minority students to leverage their skills and to work on their own startup ideas. One can say that Ima lives and breathes the startup culture.
As an Investment Partner at Dorm Room Fund, Bay Area, Ima is one of a team of eight students at Stanford and UC Berkley responsible for approving the investment of a minimum of US$20,000 in great ideas created by college students. Ima also mentioned that college students with great ideas from other countries are welcome to apply. “Great ideas are great everywhere,” said Ima, “and we want to make sure we fund the best ideas from around the world.”
In spite of her achievements, Ima views her accomplishments as opportunities to give back to others or to learn about the fascinating and fast paced startup industry. Ima and her siblings are currently raising funds to produce four one-week technology camps in Guyana this summer and their goal is to expose 100 Guyanese students to the MIT Scratch programming language which was their own introduction to logic and problem solving and a fun and interesting way to expose students to the world of technology. “Right now, the goal is to raise enough funds to leave each student with a tablet computer and the programming skills to represent Guyana in the k12youthcode.com Scratch coding league starting in the Fall of 2016,” said Ima. “I’m 100% sure that Guyanese students will do well enough to compete globally.”
Ima feels that all students should be exposed to technology and she strongly believes that, “All communities should have the talent to solve their own problems using technology. These solutions also create jobs and contribute to local economies, so the decision to encourage technology development among students in the developing world is a no-brainer.”
