The Tej Kohli Foundation Grows
Throughout his career, Tej Kohli has worked on finding solutions to problems that businesses face. In particular, through his company Grafix Softech, he has built business-to-business e-commerce platforms that help strengthen payment gateways and credit card interfaces for interactive software.

But when Kohli, a 48-year-old native of India, moved to Costa Rica several years ago, his eyes were opened to a completely different kind of problem: the plight of needy children in the impoverished nation.

He decided he couldn't just walk away from their problems. Instead, he using more than us$150,000 of his own funds, he established the Tej Kohli Foundation to help kids in Costa Rica break out of their poverty-stricken situations.

"One of my friends has a farm in Guanacaste, a province in Costa Rica. I was visiting once and met several needy children and their families. Thereafter we set up a foundation and started funding their education and in many cases other forms of assistance, especially for handicapped children," says Kohli. "We started with 12 children and now we are up to 72 children. We expect to take on up to 125 children by next year."

The Foundation provides food, education and lodging for kids, as well as occasional medical assistance. Beyond that, the participating children receive a monthly allowance and Kohli and his two-person foundation staff follow their educational progress closely. Building on their success thus far, Kohli hopes to take things even further in the future.

"We want to build partnerships with the appropriate agencies and charities that also help kids, and we'd like to spread all over the world," he says. And that's one problem-solving technique anyone can appreciate.