Global Ambition: Kidane Sarko’s Journey to Vanderbilt

Growing up in the small rural village of Yetebon, Ethiopia, Kidane Amare Sarko could step just outside his thatched-roof, mud and wood hut and see his future.

He could see his father, who could neither read nor write, work in the field as a farmer. As the eldest boy in a family of seven children, Sarko fetched water, collected firewood and looked after the cows. Though he desired a different life for himself, it was difficult to imagine one.