Ben Keene

From Tribewanted

Founder: Ben Keene

Tribe Name: Chief Bengazi

"On January 14, 2006, Ben Keene received an email that changed his life. He had just taken a sip of hot tea when the message from his friend Mark James popped up, and Keene did a double take at the subject line: "A TRIBE IS WANTED."

Keene and James, both 26, had been brainstorming ideas for an Internet start-up, and Keene was used to receiving email messages full of improbable schemes from his friend. The business plan outlined in the current message didn't disappoint: We will establish an online community and call it a tribe, James had written. Members will create profiles, post photos, and chat online—the usual stuff—and then do something with no known precedent in the history of the Internet: The virtual tribe will become a real one. We will travel to a desert island, James wrote, and form a partnership with an indigenous tribe. We will build an environmentally friendly tourist facility and show it off to the world as a model of low-impact development. We will be a 21st-century tribe, and you, Ben Keene, will be a chief.” National Geographic Adventure Magazine, February 2006

Through his work in adventure travel, international development and more recently running time-out magazine, [Career Break Café][1], Ben has often found himself in the middle of an adventure in some remote part of the world. So when Ben’s mate Mark challenged him to a bet to form a global tribe that would develop an eco-community on a tropical island, Ben knew that this would be the start of his biggest adventure yet!

email ben > bengazi@tribewanted.com

skype ben > benjaminkeene