Summit Stories Brings Charity to New Heights

As I polish my boots to begin my ascension today of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, I’m excited to bring you news about Summit Stories, a journey across the seven continents and their highest peaks to help bring educational opportunities to underprivileged youth and local communities. The initiative was launched in 2012 with the fervent support of the eBay/PayPal community and we can’t wait to begin our next expedition.

The second Summit Stories expedition – Kili Tech Trek – is now here and I can you tell the excitement is palpable as we anticipate our climb. Joining me are technophiles from Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia as we climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise funds for a local non-profit (Amani Children’s Home) that supports the homeless children of Tanzania. Amani has received a grant from the eBay Foundation which will help contribute to the creation of a counseling service for the children.

In addition to the charitable cause, KiliTechTrek is also focusing on the use of technology by its participants before and during the trek. We are partnering with tech companies to enable Trekkers to power their devices, transfer media seamlessly, track and report their progress on social media and transfer money on the trail. As an example, we will make a donation via PayPal every day of the climb all the way to the summit!

As Chief Mountaineer at Summit Stories and Director of Business Development at PayPal I’m incredibly blessed to be making this trek with my counterparts as we ascend Africa’s highest mountain for a great charitable cause, and use the latest technologies on the way. This is an impactful story and I hope it is as inspirational for others as it is for me!

KiliTechTrek will also support Amani in their next big challenge: to purchase and build a new welcome center in the city of Arusha that will help support up to 100 new children per year.

Do you want to learn more, get involved or make a donation to Amani? Please follow us at: www.kilitechtrek.com. I’ll be posting photos from the expedition along the way that you’ll be able to see on PayPal’s various social media channels. See you at the top!