The Autodesk vision is to help people IMAGINE, DESIGN, and CREATE a better world. Recently two of my daughter's childhood friends, Lisa Curtis and Valerie Popelka, held a fundraising campaign to start a company that would provide nutritious food and also benefit people in Africa.

Visit the web site.

Though not CAD-related, to me this sounds like its right in line with Autodesk vision. After a summer as an intern at the White House, Lisa joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in Niger. Now Lisa and Valerie are trying to help Lisa's former country-mates by creating a product that is based on Moringa which is plentiful in Africa. If their Kuli Kuli bars catch on, they will help Africans have a profitable export crop. Those in the United States who consume it garner its nutrition. It's a win-win.

I got this email yesterday from Valerie that she sent to all Kuli Kuli supporters.

Dear Scott,

We've said it before, but we cannot thank you enough for your support. The past three months have been an incredible journey as we've grown from a small-scale operation in a commercial kitchen to a full-fledged business with over 1,000 customers and a manufacturing order for 18,000 bars. We've been featured on the homepage of Yahoo! News, the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle business section, and generally are becoming recognized as a leader in the Moringa movement.

Amidst all our success, we've also come across a few challenges. Here are a few of the things we've been working on:

• Building up our Moringa network.

  
  source: Worldatlas

  Kuli Kuli is thrilled to work with a Moringa supplier in Ghana that shares our vision to improve health and livelihoods through Moringa. We've also been connecting with other Moringa organizations all over the world and will be telling many of these stories through our website and blog soon.

• Securing a strong manufacturing partner.

  

  We're excited to partner with a manufacturer that shares our values of healthy and nutritious food that also makes a positive impact abroad. We've been working closely with the formulator to refine our recipes and source only the highest-quality ingredients for our bars.

• New, brightly colored packaging.

  

  Big thanks to all of you who voted on our new packaging. The vote was in favor of brighter packaging that highlights our different flavors.

Thanks again for all your support,
Valerie Popelka
Founder & CMO
kulikulibar.com

Like any new venture, Kuli Kuli has a strong social media presence.

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I am proud to work at Autodesk based on the work our company does. I am also proud of children that I have watched grow up and how our company values are in line with their aspirations.

Moringa is alive in the lab (kitchen).