“They asked me questions like, ‘was I related to characters in the movie?’” Seda said.
He didn’t have a high opinion of many of his classmates, either, who didn’t appreciate their education and didn’t respect the instructors.
Seda attended Morehouse University, a predominantly African-American college in Atlanta, and started Georgia’s first African-American swim team, called the City of Atlanta Dolphins, which practiced in the Martin Luther King Jr. Natatorium and competed with top swim teams around the country.
After a long stint in the IT department at IBM, Seda decided to become a consultant, bringing knowledge and business opportunities to Americans wanting to do business in East Africa—and therefore bringing economic development to Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. He founded the East Africa American Business Council in 1999, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting trade, investment, education, and health partnerships between the United States and the three countries.
Throughout the years, Seda has been in charge of some very memorable meetings. In 1999, his nonprofit hosted the president of Tanzania and many business representatives from the country, and he arranged for meetings with local businesspeople. A year later, he helped organize a health conference on Malaria and HIV with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Medical Team for Africa, and the health ministries for thirty-two countries.
The East Africa American Business Council has gained considerable influence—for example, in 2003, the new Kenyan ambassador to the United States and the U.S. ambassador to Kenya met for the first time at an EAABC conference. From that flowed a grant from the University of Georgia to create small business alliances between the two countries, among other things.
Recently, Seda has started to concentrate on the development of affordable housing in Kenya—an area of great need. He had a U.S. company ready to invest $10 million to build a manufacturing plant in Kenya with the intent to provide jobs and build low-cost housing. Another company was also ready to invest in affordable housing in Kenya. Both companies have put their plans on hold since violence erupted.
