Herding goats and camels in Somalia as a teenager, Mubarik Mohamoud had no idea he would go to college let alone attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mohamoud is one of the few students who have come to the U.S. from Somaliland, an autonomous region of Somalia that is not yet internationally recognized as a sovereign state. Mohamoud grew up in a poor village on the border of Kenya and Somalia. Against the odds, he attended a public school until 9th grade when he was accepted to Abaarso School of Science and Technology, an educational institution founded by ex-hedge fund manager Jonathan Starr and funded, in part, by Wall Street donors.