I consider myself a missionary.

My mission is public health needs of children in the sub-Sahara.

Because the future of a nation depends on the future and well-being of its children.

My folks were actually immigrants.

My first language in the home was French.

By the time I started kindergarten, I was stuttering.

I struggled a lot academically.

Just gave me a real compassion for kids, you know, in need.

My wife grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Her father was a medical missionary.

She often talked about the human need there.

But it was really when we went for the first time that I could truly understand.

I was just testing kids within various village settings around the medical mission.

And they told me about a little boy who had been born with crippled legs, had no wheelchair, no real opportunity.

I went ahead.

I ran all my tests for cognitive ability and of almost 40 children tested on that trip, he was the second best.

Through arrangements made with the family.

We had to pay one, you know, an older adolescent to carry him to school every day, getting him situated.

He became literate in a matter of months.

At the end of the next school year, he was the top student in the class.

For whatever reason, I was there at that one time in that one moment to capture and to provide the means.

From that point on, I looked for ways to take my love of science and brain development and whatever I had to offer to the public health contexts and helping African children.

And we're presently doing computer cognitive game apps, which were developed right here at Michigan State University.

We wanted something that would be engaging so that rather than taking a child and putting them with adults who are evaluating them instead of having them interact with positive games, embedding within these games as well, the ability to measure how well they respond and then further customize the games to really be most strategic and of the greatest impact benefit to the children, rehabilitatively.

Every day I'm here, I'm thankful in the having the support we've had to accomplish all that we've done and will continue to do.

That's why this means so much to me, is because it recognizes that the work we do, and the children and families that we serve matter to Michigan State University.