In an astonishing commencement address, US billionaire Robert F. Smith announced on Sunday that he will wipe out student debt for the entire 2019 graduating class at Morehouse College, prompting cheers and more than a few tears from shocked listeners to his speech.
He changed the course of 396 students’ lives in the span of a few seconds.
The gift is worth an estimated Ksh. 4 Billion ($40 million).
Robert F Smith, a technology investor and one of America’s most prominent black philanthropists, was giving an address at Morehouse College, a historically all-male black college when he made the life-changing announcement.
Smith, who has a net worth of about $5 billion according to Forbes, is the chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a private equity group he founded in 2000 that specializes in investing in software companies.
Vista is a big deal in the world of software investing, currently managing about $46 billion in investments with a portfolio of more than 50 software companies that employ over 60,000 people around the world, according to the firm’s website.
Before he earned his billions, the 56-year-old who originally hails from Colorado went to Cornell for his undergraduate degree, earning a BS in chemical engineering, followed by an MBA from Columbia Business School. He went on to work first at Kraft General Foods, then at Goldman Sachs before founding his own investment firm.
Though Smith’s gift to the 2019 graduates of Morehouse College may be his most eye-catching philanthropic effort, it isn’t his first. In 2017, Smith signed on to the Giving Pledge, joining a group of ultra-wealthy individuals — including Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett — who has publicly committed to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy.
In addition to his approximately Ksh 4Billion gift to Morehouse College graduates, Smith had previously announced a $1.5 million gift to the historically African American, all-male college.
In 2016, Smith made a $20 million dollar gift to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. After Smith donated $50 million to his alma mater in 2016, Cornell renamed its school of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering after him.
We need such people to wipe out the over Sh7 Billion debt owed to HELB by Kenyan graduates.