Uzoma Orchingwa

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Uzoma Orchingwa is a Nigerian-American technologist.[1][2][3] He is a co-founder and CEO of Ameelio,[4][5] as well as co-founder of Emerge Career.[6][7][8] He was named one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 in 2022,[9] and recognized as one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business 2021.[10]

Education

After earning a B.A. in philosophy, and sociology from Colby College, Orchingwa received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study in England, where he was awarded an Master of Philosophy in criminology from the University of Cambridge.[11][12][13] Orchingwa then attended Yale Law School,[5][13] and Yale School of Management.[13]

Career

Orchingwa co-founded Ameelio, with Gabriel Saruhashi, while attending law school in 2020.[4] Ameelio is nonprofit technology company that builds tools to reduce the size of the American criminal justice system, and transform the millions of lives negatively impacted by it.[14][5] It is estimated that nearly half of all adults in the United States – nearly 113 million people – have an immediate family member who is either formerly or currently incarcerated.[15][16][17]

As a result of Orchingwa's lived and educational experiences—the incarceration of many of his childhood friends,[12][18] his study of the history and economic impact of mass incarceration while at Cambridge,[19] and his volunteer work with a reentry nonprofit in New Haven while attending Yale Law School—a clear view of the incarceration crisis and its potential solutions came into focus.[11] Poverty drives mass incarceration in America,[20][21] and in turn, the prison industry.[22] A study by the Brookings Institution found that, "[i]n the 8 years leading up to incarceration, about half of people in prison had no income,"[22] and in "the year before [incarceration] the percentage jumps to 80%."[23][24]

Worsening this socioeconomically driven crisis is the fact that "[a] handful of American businesses [dominate] almost every aspect of prison life, raking in billions of dollars every year for products and services—often with little oversight."[25][26] Chief among them is the prison phone industry, which is dominated by just two companies—Viapath (also known as Global Tel Link) and Securus Technologies—and generates billions by charging exorbitant calling fees to the incarcerated and their families.[27][28][29]

Orchingwa founded Ameelio to disrupt this predatory industry.[4] These companies not only drive one in three families with incarcerated relatives into debt,[30] but they actively contribute to America's high-rate of recidivism.[31][32] Research has shown that maintaining close ties with family through phone calls and other mediums reduces recidivism,[33] and increases "the likelihood of an inmate’s successful reentry into society."[34] Through Ameelio, Orchingwa aims to break the grip of this duopoly,[14] and "create a more humane and rehabilitative corrections system for the over 2 million people incarcerated and their 27 million [family members]."[35][17]

In 2022, Orchingwa along with Gabriel Saruhashi, founded Emerge Career[7][36]—a technology company focused on up-skilling low-income people out of poverty.[37][8] Emerge Career raised $3.2 million in seed funding led by Alexis Ohanian’s 776, with participation from Y Combinator, SoftBank Opportunity Fund, Pioneer Fund, Michael Seibel, Deborah H. Quazzo, Lenny Rachitsky.[6]

Awards and honors

  • 2022 MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35[9]
  • 2021 Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business[10]
  • 2017 P.D. Soros Fellowship[38]
  • 2015 Gates Cambridge Scholarship[11]
  • 2013 Harry S. Truman Scholarship[11]

References

  1. ↑ Times, The New York (2022-12-08). "From the DealBook Summit: Leaders Look Into the Future". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  2. ↑ "Brainstorm Tech 2022: Leveraging Tech To Solve Mass Incarceration". fortune.com. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  3. ↑ "Tech is trying to tackle one of the country's biggest problems: mass incarceration". Fortune. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Can a Nonprofit Disrupt the Pricey Prison Phone Industry?". Bloomberg.com. 2021-09-08. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Au-Yeung, Angel. "The Prison Communications Nonprofit Backed By Twitter's Jack Dorsey And Former Google Chief Eric Schmidt". Forbes. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Coldewey, Devin (2022-11-04). "Emerge Career's pre-release job training lands $3.2M seed and new state contracts". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Coldewey, Devin (2022-08-16). "Emerge Career's tech-forward job training lets incarcerated folks hit the road on release". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Caffrey • •, Jane. "Emerge Career Creates Pipeline From Prison to the Workforce". NBC Connecticut. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "2022". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Shi, Diana (August 10, 2021). "These two founders are breaking the prison industrial complex one letter at a time". Fast Company.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Koldas, Kardelen (July 8, 2021). "Ameliorating the World—One Solution at a Time". Colby News.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Tech Company Aims to Disrupt Predatorial Prison Phone Industry - Colorlines". colorlines.com. 2021-02-17. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 "Sending a message". yalealumnimagazine.org. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Peters, Adele (May 4, 2021). "This app is making it free for incarcerated people to make video calls". Fast Company.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ↑ "Nearly Half of All Adults in U.S. Have Had a Family Member Incarcerated". FWD.us. Retrieved 2023-02-03.
  16. ↑ Admin, Madeo (2018-12-11). "Half of Americans Have Family Members Who Have Been Incarcerated". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Enns, Peter K.; Yi, Youngmin; Comfort, Megan; Goldman, Alyssa W.; Lee, Hedwig; Muller, Christopher; Wakefield, Sara; Wang, Emily A.; Wildeman, Christopher (January 2019). "What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS)". Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World. 5: 237802311982933. doi:10.1177/2378023119829332. ISSN 2378-0231.
  18. ↑ "The startup taking down corrupt prison communications to keep families connected". Freethink. Retrieved 2023-02-13.
  19. ↑ Chan, Rosalie. "These Yale students built an app that makes it super simple for people to communicate with incarcerated loved ones for free". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  20. ↑ Western, Bruce (2019). "Poverty, criminal justice, and social justice" (PDF). IRP Focus. 35 (3): 3–13.
  21. ↑ Tanner, Michael (October 21, 2021). "Poverty and Criminal Justice Reform". Cato Institute.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Kight, Stef W. (2019-06-08). "Half of prison inmates had no income in 8 years leading up to incarceration". Axios. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  23. ↑ Kight, Stef W. (2018-03-14). "How the U.S. imprisons the poor". Axios. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  24. ↑ Turner, Adam Looney and Nicholas (2018-03-14). "Work and opportunity before and after incarceration". Brookings. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  25. ↑ Primack, Stef W. Kight,Dan (2019-06-08). "Private companies are making money off the prison system in every way imaginable". Axios. Retrieved 2023-02-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. ↑ Raher, Stephen (2020-01-01). "The Company Store and the Literally Captive Market: Consumer Law in Prisons and Jails". Hastings Race and Poverty Law Journal. 17 (1): 3. ISSN 1546-4652.
  27. ↑ Kozlowska, Hanna (2018-07-25). "The prison-phone industry could be dominated by two companies". Quartz. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  28. ↑ Williams, Timothy (2015-03-30). "The High Cost of Calling the Imprisoned". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  29. ↑ Bozelko, Chandra (2016-03-21). "Opinion | The Prison-Commercial Complex". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  30. ↑ Williams, Timothy (2015-09-15). "Report Details Economic Hardships for Inmate Families". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  31. ↑ Lin, Rosalie Chan, Belle. "The high cost of phone calls in prisons generates $1.4 billion a year, disproportionately driving women and people of color into debt". Business Insider. Retrieved 2023-02-04.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  32. ↑ "Who Pays? The True Cost of Incarceration on Families". National Institute of Corrections. 2016-02-16. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  33. ↑ Wang, Leah (December 21, 2021). "Research roundup: The positive impacts of family contact for incarcerated people and their families". Prison Policy Initiative.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  34. ↑ Bolgert, Anne (Sep 15, 2021). "The Prison Phone Industry Exemplifies How Eliminating Private Prisons is Insufficient to Protect Inmates from Being Exploited for Profit". Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  35. ↑ "About Us | Ameelio | Transforming corrections with technology". www.ameelio.org. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  36. ↑ Coldewey, Devin (2022-08-16). "Emerge Career's tech-forward job training lets incarcerated folks hit the road on release". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2023-02-12.
  37. ↑ "Emerge Career: helping government create a prison-to-employment pipeline". www.emergecareer.com. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
  38. ↑ "Meet the Fellows | Uzoma Orchingwa". www.pdsoros.org. Retrieved 2023-02-04.

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