THE CHALLENGE. After more than 10 years of living in America, Kwami Williams returned to Ghana through a service trip and was alarmed at the rural abject poverty he encountered. He felt particularly concerned about the mistreatment and underappreciation of farmers. Agriculture in Ghana employed 45% of the national labor force and yet rural poverty rates significantly exceeded the national average. Without entrepreneurial expertise or empowered education for small business farmers, many international aid projects that sought to alleviate poverty never got a chance to flourish. He realized that the agricultural opportunities to empower farmers were there, but that the mentorship and economic incentives needed to be nurtured.

THE PROCESS. Williams returned from his service trip and embarked on a new career path. He switched his attention from aerospace engineering to a focus on Ghana’s agricultural growth. He entered MIT’s D-Lab, a program that works with people in the developing world to co-create solutions to global poverty challenges. His work with D-Lab led to another trip to Ghana, this time in a collaboration with small farming families on a crop locally called “the miracle tree,” or moringa. The leaves and seeds were valuable and nutritious — a true “superfood”. Moringa leaves have more vitamin A than carrots, more calcium than milk, more protein than eggs, and more iron than spinach per serving.

When he returned to MIT, Williams began research on how to cold-press the seeds of the moringa tree so that the oil could be turned into product. He also set about developing a plan to restructure the supply chain so that farmers in Ghana could receive the economic benefits of harvesting moringa trees.

THE RESULT. Oil from the moringa trees now fuels two companies that Williams co-founded with Harvard economics student Emily Cunningham — True Moringa and Minga Foods, both under the umbrella of MoringaConnect. After purchasing seeds and leaves at a fair price from farmers, Williams and his team bring them to their centralized processing center in Accra, Ghana. The moringa seeds and leaves are processed in-country, adding value and creating jobs locally. MoringaConnect has enabled over 2500 small farmers throughout Ghana to kickstart their moringa farms. With educational programs and an economic incentive provided by a guaranteed market through True Moringa and Minga Foods, Williams and his team have created opportunities for farmer entrepreneurship throughout rural Ghana. To further an environmental initiative, Williams has also committed to planting a tree for every new customer, with over 1 million trees planted so far. These initiatives earned MoringaConnect a spot on Good Morning America, where moringa was celebrated as the #1 wellness trend of 2018.