The Chamber of Us is a nonprofit built to rethink how we care for people and the planet—and to do something about it.

We're everyday people facing the same daily struggles as you—commutes, bills, and family obligations. Yet, we share a common concern for the well-being of our planet and a burning desire to make a difference.

Leveraging diverse skills and experiences, we innovate, collaborate, and support initiatives that aim for a positive impact. We are driven by the belief that change is possible and begins with committed individuals making the right choices, united in action.

Our Purpose

Our Mission

The Chamber of Us leads bold, collaborative efforts to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges—starting with education, health, and sustainability. We connect people, resources, and ideas to build a more equitable and resilient world.

Our Vision

We envision a world where people and the planet come before profit, where every community can thrive, and where collective action drives lasting change for future generations.

Meet Our Founding Team

The Chamber of Us exists because of the shared dedication and vision of our founding team. Here’s a look at the people—and the journey—that brought us together.

  • Founder, Executive Director

    My path to founding The Chamber of Us began in a very different world—engineering and corporate energy. For over a decade, I led global teams at Siemens Energy, managing high-stakes projects, multimillion-dollar budgets, and developing technology that set world records for efficiency. Our team earned prestigious industry awards, and on the surface, I had built a career to be proud of.

    But the deeper I got, the more uncomfortable I became. Those record-setting technologies still carried a heavy cost—high emissions of CO₂ and NOₓ, and a supply chain increasingly tied to fracking and environmental harm. Each year, the minimal gains in efficiency felt hollow against the bigger picture of what we were contributing to.

    Beyond that, I witnessed something harder to ignore: how corporate systems can reward profit over integrity. I saw corners cut, accountability avoided, and decisions made for reasons that conflicted with the values I believed in. Eventually, I chose to speak up about wrongdoing as a whistleblower. That experience made it clear—I couldn’t keep building things I no longer believed in.

    I wanted to be part of something that used my skills to actually move the world forward.

    That desire wasn’t new. Years earlier, I had spent time volunteering to help local candidates get on the ballot—not because I was political, but because I believed people without money or connections deserved a chance to lead. I knew firsthand how opportunity could change a life. I grew up in a low-income environment, and my family’s trajectory shifted only because someone stepped in at the right moment with an act of generosity.

    The Chamber of Us was born from a simple but powerful belief—that the right support at the right moment can change the course of a life. We’re here to offer a hand up, not just a handout, by removing barriers and creating real opportunities for people and communities to thrive. For me, that belief isn’t abstract—it’s personal. I left one world behind so I could help build another.

  • Chief Health Officer and Board Member

    Me, Farhan, and Kevin used to have weekend hangouts after I moved to the U.S. to pursue my master’s. We would bounce off ideas and share cool info with each other.

    My journey in healthcare began as a physician in Kerala, India, serving remote and populous areas and tackling communicable diseases. But my own health was declining due to a multitude of reasons, which ultimately led me to pursue applications of IT in health with a focus on NLP and data analytics from UF Medicine. The more I delved into the field and reflected on my own experiences, the more I realized how challenging it is to navigate even a single condition, even as a healthcare professional.

    Coming from a developing country to a developed nation, it was surprising to see the disconnected living, rampant non-communicable diseases, and mental health conditions plaguing our society. Additionally, the inaccessibility of many treatments and information for common people was striking. I also became increasingly interested in alternative treatment modalities that often go unnoticed.

    After Kevin embarked on his worldly ventures in Africa and other parts of the world and witnessed the living conditions, we felt a strong pull toward a mission of uniting people for better living for all beings. Being from Kerala, we are instilled with a culture of sharing for the greater good of the community. When Kevin pitched the idea of The Chamber of Us, I was excited to join this journey, hoping to create a better world for all.

  • Chief Financial Officer and Board Member

    My journey has always been shaped by movement—moving countries, careers, and ideas.

    I grew up in the Middle East, dreaming of North America and all the possibilities it promised. Eventually, I made that dream a reality, earning my degree in civil engineering and building a career in construction management. I went on to pursue a master’s degree in the U.S., driven by the same mindset I’ve always had—keep learning, keep growing, keep building.

    But even as I moved forward in my career, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. The more I learned, the more I thought about the people I grew up with—the ones who didn’t have the same opportunities I had. I wanted to do something bigger than just build structures. I wanted to help build a future that worked for everyone.

    When Kevin first shared his vision for The Chamber of Us, it immediately clicked. The idea of creating systems that empower people, challenge the status quo, and connect communities across borders felt like something worth giving my time and energy to. And being able to work alongside my partner, Sadiya, made the mission even more meaningful.

    At TCUS, I hope to use what I’ve learned in engineering, finance, and project management to help turn big ideas into real impact—brick by brick, step by step.

Our Journey

The Chamber of Us started with a question:

How did we let it get this bad—and what can we do about it?

That question hit me, Kevin Schmidt, like a brick wall during a trip to Ethiopia in 2022. I was crouched in a field and overheard a doctor I was traveling with describe the children around us as “walking skeletons”—kids suffering from severe malnutrition, dying from things the world already knows how to prevent.

That moment didn’t just break my heart. It broke something open. I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t go back to business as usual.

At the time, I had already walked away from a career in corporate energy. I’d spent years leading award-winning engineering teams, developing world-record-setting technology—only to realize that the systems I was part of were contributing to the same global crises I wanted to solve. I left that world behind to figure out what else was possible.

The Chamber of Us was born from that search.

We’re not here to slap band-aids on broken systems. We’re not here to “help” people in a way that keeps them dependent. We’re here to question the way things are, challenge the status quo, and build something better alongside the people most impacted.

We believe that with the right support at the right moment, the course of a life—and a community—can change.

Where We’re Focused Right Now

Mapping the Nonprofit Ecosystem

The global nonprofit and development sector is massive—but disconnected, inefficient, and outdated. Funding decisions are driven by politics, storytelling, and personal networks—not by data or outcomes.

Our goal is to build the first comprehensive, real-time map of the nonprofit ecosystem—showing who’s delivering, opportunities to scale, and where barriers are holding back progress. We’re applying modern data systems and process optimization to a sector still running on models from the 19th century.

This is about removing blind spots, cutting through noise, and making it possible to direct resources strategically.

Designing New Systems

The systems shaping the world today—whether in energy, food, finance, or information—weren’t built for collective well-being. They were built to concentrate profit, extract data, and keep decision-making power in the hands of a few. These systems aren’t broken—they’re working exactly as designed. And they’re steering us toward crisis. We’re not here to work within that structure. We’re here to build the infrastructure that will replace it.

That means developing the digital tools and platforms that don’t just fill gaps—they actively challenge and outcompete the extractive models driving inequality and instability today. Whether it’s ad networks, data systems, or global development pipelines, we’re working to create alternatives that shift power away from surveillance capitalism, billionaire-backed platforms, and entrenched corporate interests—and toward people and the planet.

The leading research makes it clear, getting to a sustainable and equitable future requires more than charity or good intentions. It actually requires building new systems from the ground up—and having the courage to displace the ones driving us off course. That’s what we’re here to do.

Delivering What the World Needs

Most global efforts are reactive, fragmented, and driven by politics or convenience—not by real evidence of what’s needed. Resources flow based on who tells the best story, not on what will actually secure a sustainable future.

We’re working to change that—systematically.

At The Chamber of Us, we’re building the full toolchain to identify, deliver, and accelerate what the world actually needs to move toward the best-case future: Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 1 (SSP1). That requires more than good intentions. It requires:

  • Deep research and global data integration

  • Advanced AI to process complexity and surface priorities

  • Real-time visibility into who can implement solutions, where barriers exist, and what’s working

  • Transparent feedback loops to track progress, raise issues, and continuously learn and adapt

In short, we’re building the infrastructure for a self-correcting, demand-driven, collaborative ecosystem—a living system that can outpace the entrenched, outdated models that keep the world stuck.

As IIASA’s research makes clear, a sustainable and equitable future is possible—but only if we fundamentally shift how decisions are made, how resources move, and how quickly we can adapt to emerging challenges.

We’re not here to throw money at symptoms.

We’re here to rewire the system.

We’re systems builders

At The Chamber of Us, we believe lasting change happens when you fix what’s underneath the problem—the systems, the barriers, the structures that keep people stuck. That’s how we approach this work: like engineers who’d rather design new systems than keep patching the cracks of existing ones.

We connect the dots

We look at the big picture, map the moving pieces, and figure out where things break down—whether that’s a missing resource, a lack of local leadership support, or outdated models that aren’t working.

We collaborate, not control

Instead of showing up with a “solution,” we find the people already doing the work and ask how we can help. We partner, we listen, and we get our hands dirty alongside them.

We build for tomorrow, not just today

It’s easy to patch a problem. It’s harder to design something that keeps working after the cameras leave. We focus on long-term, sustainable change that reduces dependency and puts power back in people’s hands.

We experiment and adapt

There’s no perfect blueprint for this work. So, we test, learn, and adjust—always looking for better, smarter, more human ways to make an impact.

A Chamber for All of Us

The systems we’ve inherited—our institutions, economies, and infrastructure—are failing both people and the planet. Built for a different era, they prioritize short-term gain over long-term well-being, often protecting the interests of the few at the expense of the many.

At The Chamber of Us, we believe it doesn’t have to stay that way. We take what research and lived experience show the world truly needs—people-first systems that adapt, empower, and endure—and we work to bring those ideas to life. 

But we can’t do it alone. This work belongs to all of us. And it’s going to take all of us.  If you’re ready to roll up your sleeves, lend your skills, your energy, or your ideas— you’re exactly who we’ve been looking for.