Max Gladwell

LONDON (Reuters) - The British entrepreneur who sold a football Web site at the age of 17 for $40 million (20 million pounds) has switched his attention to help launch a social networking site on Sunday designed to fight malaria.

“I believe in the power of friends telling friends telling friends,” self-styled part-time student and full-time entrepreneur Tom Hadfield told Reuters in an interview.

“It’s about more than about giving money — it’s about creating connections. By encouraging individual participation and involvement, we will create international communities of common interest. This is the essence of social networking.”

From Mashable: Believing in the power of social networks, [Hadfield] set up MalariaEngage on the broader Zazengo network in the hopes of leveraging connections established on the Web to get the word out to more and more people around the globe about the plight caused by malaria infections in Africa.

Besides having reach through their own social network, they have set up a page on Facebook so that they can engage users there as well. They have also added applications for a series of seven causes, which you can find the links for at the bottom of their main page, and donations can be accepted there as well.

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