Fort Myers Native Viktor Mak Named Google Ambassador for Colgate University

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Colgate University student Viktor Mak rides a bike at Google headquarters

HAMILTON, NY (10/19/2012)(readMedia)-- Colgate University sophomore Viktor Mak, of Fort Myers, Fla., has been selected as one of 150 college students nationwide to be a Google student ambassador.

Mak, a graduate of Fort Myers High School, was accepted into the elite program after being nominated by the manager of Colgate's student technology resource group. Mak attended a training summit at Google headquarters in California this summer in preparation for his role. As a campus ambassador, Mak is charged with promoting the company's products at events and tutorial sessions.

Before joining the Google team, like any well-qualified ambassador, Mak has been expanding his global knowledge. Over the summer, he visited four continents and five countries.

His travels began with a flight to Kigali, Rwanda, along with Colgate's prestigious Benton Scholars program, which offers opportunities to travel and participate in special courses that infuse leadership and global themes into the Colgate experience.

Mak and the group also traveled to Buhoma, Uganda, where they volunteered in a hospital, tested the area's water quality, and conducted sanitation surveys. "We were trying to find the correlation between bacteria in the water and illness in people who use that water source," Mak explained.

While in Uganda, Mak began his own project where he took photos of families, students, soccer teams, and hospital patients, recognizing that the people in those impoverished communities have limited or no access to cameras. Color printer in tow, Mak provided more than 300 Ugandans with the first photos they have ever owned.

Thanks to an additional grant from the Benton Scholar grant, Mak spent five weeks in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, studying Spanish in the mornings and volunteering his afternoons at Trama Textiles. "I decided to volunteer [there] because I really liked that it supported women," Mak said of the business that employs 400 women to do "backstrap loomweaving" - an ancient Mayan weaving technique that is unique to Guatemala.

Mak created an online store that introduced their small business to the international market, and has already accrued profits.

Mak's summer also included his annual summer visit to his native Hungary.