“It was the first time anyone had made that kind of promise. It gave me confidence I didn’t have before.”
When Medan Mamo was just a few months old, his parents left Ethiopia and brought him to the United States on a diversity immigrant visa.
This is a government lottery program for receiving an immigrant visa followed by a permanent resident card. After a brief stop in Florida, they visited family in Colorado for a wedding. Captivated by the mountains, they decided to settle in Aurora where they discovered a thriving Ethiopian community that would become central to Medan’s upbringing.
Although an only child, Medan never felt alone. His mother raised him in their Ethiopian church, Addis Kidan, where weekends were spent surrounded by peers in youth classes . “That community really raised me,” Medan reflects. “They were always there with their time, their energy, and their support.”
At home, his mother set one particular expectation: he would go to college. But the path there seemed impossibly expensive. His mother worked long hours as a custodian at Denver International Airport, and later as a school bus aide, but college tuition was far out of reach. For Medan, higher education felt like a distant dream.
That changed in middle school when representatives from Hope Ignites Colorado visited his school. They told Medan and the other students about a program that could help with tutoring, mentorship, and even financial support for college. One line stuck with him: “If you put in the effort, we guarantee you’ll go to college and graduate.”
“It was the first time anyone had made that kind of promise,” Medan recalls. “It gave me confidence I didn’t have before.”
He filled out the Academy program application on his own. When he was accepted, his family thought it was just another after-school program. In reality, it was the start of a journey that would shape his future.
Medan’s high school experience at Aurora Central High School, which had one of the highest truancy rates in Colorado, took on new focus when he joined Hope Ignites. Surrounded by peers who shared the goal of going to college, he began to see possibilities that previously felt out of reach.
Medan together with Mary Fran Tharpe, Executive Director of Hope Ignites Colorado.
Medan Mamo speaking at a Martini Party fundraising event for Hope Ignites Colorado.
“Hope Ignites and my church showed me that I could do this, even when I didn’t believe it myself.”
A pivotal moment came during an exercise where Academy students built sample college budgets. For Medan, the math was a crushing realization. Even with financial aid, he couldn’t see how college would be affordable. “I realized that unless I made choices right then, college wasn’t possible,” he says. That moment sparked a relentless focus on finding ways to reduce costs.
He doubled down on concurrent enrollment classes through the Community College of Aurora, racking up credits during his junior and senior years of high school. By graduation in 2019, he had already earned 60 college credits, essentially half a bachelor’s degree.
That fall, Medan enrolled at the University of Northern Colorado, following his high school girlfriend (now longtime partner) who was going there to study nursing. Thrust into junior standing on his first day, he was required to choose a major almost immediately. A chance connection with an Ethiopian economics professor who was the head of the department set him on a path he hadn’t expected.
“He told me econ was flexible, that it could open doors in a lot of directions,” Medan says. He declared economics, with a minor in computer science, and finished his degree in just two years.
Still, the future wasn’t guaranteed. Medan needed an internship, and he leaned on Hope Ignites again. Through its partnership with World Wide Technology, he secured a spot as a data science intern. That opportunity stretched into his senior year, and when he graduated, WWT offered him a full-time role.
Today, Medan is a Business Consultant at World Wide Technology’s Colorado office, helping banks streamline operations through automation tools and data solutions. His team identifies costly inefficiencies, builds applications to address them, and trains clients to use the tools effectively. “The best part is we don’t just hand over a recommendation, we stay and build the solution,” Medan explains.
Looking back, he credits both his church and Hope Ignites with giving him the community and confidence to aim higher than he ever thought possible. “They showed me that I could do this, even when I didn’t believe it myself.”
Asked what advice he would give to current Hope Ignites scholars, Medan doesn’t hesitate:
“Pay attention to the people you keep close. My church, Hope Ignites, and my partner kept me grounded when things felt impossible. Community will push you further than you think, and the right people around you can change your whole path.”
