Kenny Fennell is the cofounder of the social enterprise Social Mobility Group LLC and the service Caravan – a tool people use to find and access the transportation that meets their customized needs whether it’s connecting with a community member who can accompany them on a bus ride or with whom they can share the cost of a trip to downtown.

After beginning his career as a civil engineer in Kabul, Afghanistan, Kenny saw how community-led projects created greater benefits than projects created without any community input. This led him to found Caravan with Benjamin Morse as 2016 Dow Sustainability Fellows at the University of Michigan on the philosophy of community-led innovation: the belief that innovation is enhanced when communities are empowered in the creation process. With guidance from Focus: HOPE, they understood that Caravan must meet the transportation needs of low- to moderate-income Detroit residents to create the equitable and inclusive success that communities desire.

Kenny received his Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and his Bachelor of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.