12 Years - Too Little Time?

I've committed to ending poverty in Immokalee by the year 2020, which is a little more than 12 years from now. Can we do it, or have we set ourselves up for failure, even ridicule? You decide.

In 12 years, companies have gone from one person's idea to mulit-billion-dollar operations.

You could get 3 Ph.D.s in that time.

I don't think it's that daunting a project, but the thing is, we'll never get there if we don't try.

As management guru Jim Collins says, we need a BHAG - a Big Hairy Audacious Goal - or people won't take us seriously.

How will we do it?

We're going to get one laptop for every school kid in Immokalee.

We're going to help create more and more microlending funds.

We're going to come up with solutions that will bring the graduation rate from 50% to 99%+.

We'll attract industry to the enterprise zone out at the airport, so that there are great-paying jobs right there in Immokalee, and plenty of room for start-ups, too.

We'll make sure that everyone living there has access to English, literacy, and parenting classes, run the right way (we've already started with Immokalee Non-Profit Housing, and Habitat for Humanity is joining us after Aug. 20th.)

I've known hundreds of very affluent people in my life, and this year I'll be creating a high school course and textbook that will show poor and middle-class kids how to make the move from the slums to Port Royal and its like, using the experience and advice of others just like them, others who have gone before them and made that move.

12 years? Once this thing gains some steam, we'll look back and say, "We thought it would take how long? We should have had more confidence!"