there was more to life than putting up soccer scores…

The British entrepreneur who sold a football Web site at the age of 17 for $40 million has switched his attention to help launch a social networking site last April. Through this fantastic website amazing young people are building a social network to fight Malaria in Africa. Malaria Engage also helps channel funds directly to young African researchers. This is really exciting stuff!

Now 25 and a fourth-year political science student at Harvard university, Tom Hadfield came up with the idea for www.MalariaEngage.org after a trip to Zambia last summer that gave him a close-up look at the mosquito-born disease. “Traveling across Africa and seeing the devastation caused by malaria made me realize there was more to life than putting up soccer scores,” said Hadfield. “Everyone I met at an aid project making mosquito nets in Zambia had either lost a child to malaria or knew someone who had.”

Good on you Tom! This is a fantastic online social network which will indeed go a long way to helping committed young researchers with good ideas to help themselves create a better future.