The story of how The Infinity Branch came to life is one that spans decades and continents. How it all started — and, more specifically, when it started — quickly becomes a philosophical question. What is the first spark that truly ignites a fire?

For us, there were three crucial starting points that brought us to where we are today.

Come along on our journey.

Nigeria, early 2000s

We begin in southern Nigeria in the early 2000s.

A teenage boy has just finished his elementary education. The journey to get there has been anything but straightforward. He grew up in a small rural village with his mum, dad, and siblings. Electricity was sporadic, running water even more so. But he felt safe, and he grew up surrounded by a loving family.

Attending school in the village was a luxury reserved for very few. Although he spent part of his early school years in a public school — often sharing classrooms with well over 100 other pupils — his family could not afford to keep him there. Instead, he spent his days helping with chores and selling goods on the village streets to contribute to the household income. This was a very normal existence for a young boy in this part of the country.

Then, one day, everything changed.

A foreigner working in Nigeria came across the family and wanted to help. He offered to sponsor the boy’s education, giving him a fair chance to improve not only his own life, but also that of his family.

The boy was filled with excitement and became deeply motivated to succeed. Although he had missed many years of schooling, he was determined to catch up. His aptitude for learning and sheer ambition quickly elevated him to the top of every classroom. Eventually, this journey led him all the way to London, where he studied for an undergraduate degree in Business.

That first spark — the one that ignited the fire — had appeared.

While deeply grateful for his own fortune, he could not stop thinking about the many children back home who were not as lucky. He promised himself that one day, he would try to help them too. The boy’s name was Chuks — though he didn’t yet know that one day, he would.

Sweden, another continent.

The story continues in a colder country, on another continent. In Stockholm, a young Swedish boy has just moved away from home. He is 19 years old and has grown up with many of the conveniences most of us take for granted: a fridge always stocked with food, clean drinking water at exactly the temperature you want it, television entertainment, family holidays abroad, and a full schedule of organised activities with friends.

His biggest challenges so far in life had been deciding which sports he was allowed to play — not because of money, but because of time. It was impossible to commit fully to both ice hockey and football, so he chose the former, and loved it.

School, however, was treated more like a playground than a place for learning. Many parent–teacher meetings ended with concerned looks from teachers and familiar pleas from parents: “Could you not just try to focus a bit more? You have so much potential.”

He managed to get through school as a very average student, doing the bare minimum and prioritising friendships over academics.

As he left his teenage years and entered early adulthood, something shifted. Curiosity grew. For the first time, he began to enjoy learning — and doing well.

This took him into his first permanent job and eventually inspired him to pursue higher education in London.

With this came a growing sense of reflection. He realised how much of the free, high-quality education he had been offered throughout childhood he had taken for granted.

A spark was lit in Sweden too.

As he caught up on learning, he began to understand just how rare this opportunity truly is — and how many people around the world never get access to education at all. He quietly promised himself that one day, he would try to help others who had not been as fortunate. His name was Gus — and today, he is one of the two co-founders of The Infinity Branch.

Fast forward to 2009

Chuks and Gus met as classmates while studying business in London. They knew they were born the same year and supported the same English football team, but beyond that, they knew little about each other’s lives or ambitions.

It wasn’t until after they had earned their degrees — during one of many road trips to watch their team play — that deeper conversations began.

This is where the second spark was lit.

As Gus became curious about Chuks’ upbringing in rural Nigeria, he quickly realised how different the world can look depending on where you start. He had assumed that anyone studying in London must have grown up in circumstances similar to his own. As you can see, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Their conversations gradually became more practical: teacher salaries, class sizes, construction costs. And slowly, excitement grew around the idea of starting a project that could genuinely help children access education.
Chuks had already begun drafting ideas. Gus, on the other hand, had naively assumed that you needed to be a millionaire to do something like this. But as their understanding deepened, it became clear that this was something they could start now.

They decided to set up a first meeting — one fully dedicated to the idea, deliberately kept separate from debates about their football team’s latest performance.

Another ball was set in motion.

The first meeting

In September 2018, Chuks and Gus met at a local café, laptops and notebooks in hand, ready to turn ideas into something real. The sketches were rough. The plans were incomplete. But it was a beginning. More importantly, they both left that café with the same feeling: this wasn’t something that could happen — it was something that would happen.

Two small sparks had now become a flame. The embryo of a charity had emerged.

And that was the beginning of The Infinity Branch.