Joel Rao | Candidate AIVPIM 10-11 | BIO My son, Joel Stephen Rao was born on a Sunday morning at the Delhi general Hospital. I remember seeing his little yellow frail body as he yelled for breath. It was the most magical sight I had seen in my life him being my first child. Being the only one by at that time, I loved him and cared for his development and well being as a person. There is one thing I noticed though, he always assumed a more leadership role among his peers. He was a born leader! He attended his pre-school when he moved to Kenya at the age of 5 because of his father's business. At that tender age, Joel took a more responsible role in his school at Blue bells primary school as a scout and a class prefect. As a mother, I got to more surprises from my son. He suddenly got this interest in his father's computer and started acting odd compared to his younger brother. Instead of watching cartoons he was always interested in documentaries on TV that concentrated on technology and wildlife. He seemed so mature yet he was this small brown thing. As he grew up his interest in technology continued to increase and true to my fear he turned out to be a geek. I feared for his development into teenage-hood as he would continue in his “weird” ways. I was proven wrong when he joined high school in 2003 at friends school Kamusinga. He took up Basketball as a sport but tasted the bitter taste of failure by being a water boy for the 1st one and a half years. I believe this gave him the hunger to want to make it to the first team and a winning spirit was forged from this cruelty of reality of being a mere water boy. His failure turned success after being called up and it was in this point in his life that I saw a boy turn into a man..... A man who hungered to win. He also developed this unusual charm especially towards the girls who I think couldn't resist his unusual humor. His endless quest to find himself in leadership was evident in high school where he held strategic positions of leadership within the institution. Being a bright student he passed his high school with an A- and went ahead to join Strathmore university. It is here that the endless talks about AIESEC started. He joined in 2006 and since then he has never looked back. I remember in December that year when he came home to tell me that he got elected to by Vice president exchange development in his Chapter. He thrived as his friends always showered him with praise in his innovation on getting more people involved. In 2007 he took up the same position but with projects involved. This was the beginning of him getting a more social side developed as far as the community development is concerned. I remember attending his networking dinner that year and him being named the best exchanger in that year. I was the proudest woman that day. He went ahead to apply for that national position of information management, an area that he thrives in as far as his geeky innovative nature goes. The amount of things I have seen him do in the past 9 months have been mind blowing getting him involved in the global corporate sector as far as technology and related consultancy is related. I believe his theme of “Enhancing the networks, Evolving the connections” will work especially in the dynamic world that AIESEC has. His philosophy in life is always going to infinity and beyond. AIESEC has enabled him to connect to the world and I think it is time the world gave him the opportunity to connect to him by giving it his innovations. As he always says,”To infinity and beyond”
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