Click here to read a USA TODAY College article about Darlington alumnus Rostam Zafari ('14), who has donated his $100,000 winnings from the Cyrus Prize to The New School in Atlanta.
According to the article, Zafari received the prize, which honors young Iranian entrepreneurs, in 2015 for his work on Rapid Ebola Detection Strips (REDS), a portable test strip kit that aims to quickly determine whether or not a person has contracted Ebola.
The Cyrus Prize helps recipients like Zafari build their businesses, but since Zafari already has funding for his startup, he saw a way to give the money even more impact: funding education for students to create their own startups.
The New School, where Zafari teaches twice a week as an entrepreneur-in-residence, was founded in 2013 for this exact purpose. The private Atlanta high school focuses on engaging students with the community and solving real-world problems.
“Education is the closest thing we have to a superpower,” says Zafari, who has taught at the school since August 2016.
Zafari is co-founder of a learning company called Mystro, an app that allows high school students to connect with college-aged tutors for one-on-one learning sessions.
