It all started when…

Our Founder, Dan Sutera, took a trip to visit rural Zambia in 2008. After 10 years of growing startup companies, two of which cracked the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in America, he was looking for his next challenge.

In Zambia, he met David Seidenfeld, who had spent years doing the Peace Corps, PhD work, and building a school with the help of his colleague, Mike Weiss. Together, they created Impact Network and began building more schools in rural Zambia to bring educational access to out-of-school children.

Our current Executive Director, Reshma Patel, has been with Impact Network since its inception. She started working on the company’s finances in 2009 and became increasingly more involved each year. Reshma and Mike held the early board and strategy meetings in their tiny NYC apartment.

By 2011, we had built five schools, operated by the community. But after completing these construction works, we realized that while the buildings were impressive, the level of education was inadequate. In 2011, we shifted our focus beyond the build, and created the eSchool 360 system – a holistic eLearning solution to deliver a high-quality education, while keeping costs to a minimum.

When Reshma and Mike got married, they went to Zambia to visit our schools for their honeymoon. They spent the week going around to all of the schools and logging attendance data. After years of doing our finances, Reshma took over as executive director of Impact Network in 2013.

In 2017, we launched an ambitious expansion project to bring the eSchool 360 to 35 additional schools, combined with a rigorous evaluation conducted by American Institutes for Research.

Today we operate in 40+ schools and serve over 6,000 students.