Written by Tom Kelly
Fai was born in Togo, West Africa, a French-speaking country, and moved to North Dakota in 2016, where he completed my junior and senior years while learning English. After graduating, he attended Clarkson University, where he studied Engineering & Management.
During his freshman year, he was admitted into the school’s Honors program. That summer, while doing research, he wanted to return to his entrepreneurial passion. As a kid in Togo, he sold peanuts and even had a bunny business. Using his research stipend, he bought a few business courses online and decided to start an online community. He thought it would be a great way to connect engineers and share about engineering, which he loved to talk about.
The beginning was rough. He remembers posting multiple times every day and getting little to no results in the first year. He kept posting, and over time, he went from getting one follower every other day to thousands some weeks.
Today, the Engineering Community reaches over 20 million accounts per month, connecting engineers globally and shedding light on groundbreaking engineering inventions in history and today.
As a one-person team, it’s been wild going from that idea of “Engineering Community” he had during my shower to having hundreds of thousands of followers and a global reach.
Today, he continues to find ways to do more for the community. He recently did a face reveal on the page and started interviewing engineers and sharing their stories to inspire others.
Additionally, he is expanding their collaborations to offer resources like scholarships to students, jobs to engineers looking for them, and business resources to engineering startup founders.
He is grateful to be on this journey and look forward to demonstrating how incredible engineering can be. If you are an engineer, engineering student, entrepreneur, or STEM enthusiast, please feel free to reach out. He would love to hear your story and engage in meaningful conversations.
How did you First hear about Venture Café Phoenix?
Have you had any memorable connections at Venture Café Phoenix? If so, please tell us how you met them, who they are and how they have impacted you and your organization/company.
I have had many memorable connections at Venture Cafe. It’s where I met my co-founder, Cristian Zambrano, for Nutrivo.app, where we are building an AI-powered nutrition app that helps you decide what to eat effortlessly based on your goals, taste preferences, restrictions, and more.
I have also met mentors like Vincent Serpico and Ana Tomboulian there, along with amazing connections like Tom Kelly and Taylor Owen, who continue to support me and provide resources as I build my career.