Karan Arora

Cast adrift after the death of his father, Karan has turned his experiences as a young man into a personal mission to help teens stay out of trouble by showing them positive pathways to plan their future. He believes that it is his obligation to give back to the community that helped him thrive during his times of hardship.  As Karan found academic success in college largely through trial and error, he specifically wanted to work toward preventing at-risk youth from experiencing the lack of direction that can frustrate young people and stifle initiative.

During sophomore year at his Bay Area community college, he was given an opportunity to volunteer with the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH) Program developed at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, “a program I wish I’d been a part of as a high school student,” he says. YEAH supports youth through education, mentoring and coaching.  Volunteering at YEAH gave him the incentive to become a mentor when he transferred to UC San Diego, an experience that is teaching him about diversity, equity and inclusion from a real-world perspective.