There aren’t many startup founders with a degree in criminology. But for Uzoma “Zo” Orchingwa, studying why crime happens—and how to reduce it—helped pave the path for launching his company: a communication and education tools platform for the incarcerated.
Orchingwa’s master’s degree from the University of Cambridge wasn’t the only inspiration for Ameelio, which he founded in 2020. Growing up, the entrepreneur had several friends who were incarcerated, and he experienced firsthand how difficult it was to stay in touch.
“The industry is dominated by two for-profit companies that have 80% market share,” says Orchingwa, whose startup has offices in Connecticut and New York. These companies, he explains, generate revenue by charging the incarcerated “exorbitant” fees for phone calls. (Just last January, President Joe Biden signed a bill that aims to curb these costs, but currently prisoners pay an average $5 for a 30-minute call, according to statistics from the Federal Communications Commission.)
Orchingwa set out to disrupt what he sees as a predatory system with technology that’s cheaper to deploy—and easier to use. To that end, Ameelio develops both software and hardware. The incarcerated are given access to audio and video communication tools—over both already existing devices and ruggedized tablets made by Ameelio. But Orchingwa also wants to disrupt the underlying business model: Ameelio, a nonprofit, charges prison systems, not prisoners.
“We operate as your typical venture-backed startup—we’re very lean, with a fixation on growth,” says Orchingwa. “But for us, the reason we are a nonprofit is that, for certain industries, there isn’t a way to properly monetize and generate the kind of returns that venture funds would want.”
According to Orchingwa, Ameelio will generate upwards of $4 million in revenue this year—the company’s products are already up and running in state-run prisons in Iowa, Colorado, and Maine. And the startup has attracted quite a few big names from the tech industry: Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and ex–Google head Eric Schmidt have both awarded grants to Ameelio.
His biggest challenge at the moment? “To keep the momentum going,” says Orchingwa. “We have to build much better products [than incumbents in the space] and provide lower rates to incentivize the prison systems.”
Fun fact about Orchingwa: “I’m a pretty good DJ. I’ve been DJ’ing semiprofessionally since undergrad, and I did it [at parties] at Cambridge and at Yale.”
The Fortune Founders Forum is a community of entrepreneurs chosen by Fortune’s editorial team to participate at the annual Brainstorm Tech conference, which took place in Deer Valley, Utah, in July. Our inaugural cohort was selected based on a variety of factors, including the potential impact of their companies, and reflected a diversity of geographies, sectors, and demographics.
