About Us

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The Background Story of Sunalei

In the booming tech landscape of the early 2010s, Julio Marchi, Sunalei’s visionary founder, navigated the turbulent waters of IT consultancies, helping companies in the US build or overhaul their digital engines, from scratch or rusty to sleek and efficient.

During his hiring experiences, a chilling trend was noticed: a scarcity of qualified professionals in the pool of US-educated tech workers. Interviewing American and immigrant candidates alike revealed a stark imbalance. International talent shone with expertise. Over 85% of placed talent hailed from abroad, their skills dwarfing most US-educated applicants.

As an immigrant himself, with over 25 years of experience at the time in IT and Business worldwide, Marchi knew firsthand the value of diverse perspectives and experiences. He was always ready to wholeheartedly embrace talent regardless of nationality. But reality stung: American-made STEM professionals, the ones in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, who once fueled the nation’s innovation engine, were – and still are – increasingly vanishing. Not just a staffing issue, but a systemic disease byproduct of outsourcing American innovation.

For decades, predatory outsourcing has been crippling America’s ability to nurture STEM jobs. Universities still produced brilliance in the US but on a shrinking scale, all while the world races towards a future powered by STEM. American innovation, a once-thriving tech hub, became filled with operators and cogs in machines built overseas. It isn’t about intelligence; American minds are just as capable, but opportunities became a smoldering ember, almost extinct in the USA market, needing to be rekindled before irreparably fading forever.

Before Sunalei was founded, Marchi and his teams battled this tide for years. They preached the dangers of uncontrollable outsourcing in training sessions and executive meetings, penned articles, and lobbied leaders. But their pleas were met with the cold, calculating logic of profit-driven machines, industries seemed unmoved by pleas for national interest.

Yet, their resolve burned bright. They continued brainstorming, researching, and tirelessly exploring solutions until they cracked the code. The American Innovation Machine needed a multi-faceted jolt, and their small team alone was not equipped to deliver it. Thus, Sunalei was born.

While a nonprofit platform could open doors, facilitate access to resources, and provide answers for some challenges, the founders knew Sunalei couldn’t act alone; it should operate as an orchestra, harmonizing diverse voices and programs under one banner. They tailored the organization and its initiatives to be more than a simple NPO, with programs and projects that could deliver amplified impact, aiming for a force so potent that outsourcing would become an afterthought. In such endeavors, collaboration became the very heartbeat of Sunalei.

The organization’s modus operandi currently targets training facilities to produce more American professionals, plus qualification and certification to incentivize decision-makers around job creation AND profits. Sunalei programs aim for standardization, quality seals, and strategic funding mechanisms; all to attract industry leaders with a glint of profitability in their eyes, not just patriotism in their hearts.

Sunalei has been forged in the fires of experience solving critical challenges, driving progress by innovating with ideas towards a better future.

STEM jobs are the engines that power progress, the lifeblood of communities, the seeds of startups blooming into job-creating giants, ensuring a future brimming with opportunity for generations to come. A nation’s true economic strength lies in its ability to cultivate its talent and attract collaboration and investments. This requires nurturing a fertile ground for inspiration and inventiveness, where cutting-edge solutions have the chance to blossom into tangible products and technologies. When these ideas take root, communities flourish. New capital flows in, tax revenues rise, and development soars, painting a vibrant picture of sustainable progress.

However, the path to true prosperity cannot be solely paved by inspiring the minds that America produces to retain their brilliance, this requires us to empower the industry with clear pathways to adequate funding and other mechanisms so they can attract bright minds and global collaboration while staying financially viable. Knowing profit is the main influencer for industry decision-makers, it cannot be ignored in programs that aim incentives for creation of specialized job opportunities in America. If it is not more attractive and financially viable than outsourcing, the industry will continue opting for predatory outsourcing instead of hiring here, in the US.

That’s how Sunalei is helping rewrite America’s history, as a motivational leader and positive change agent guiding the industry to propel the country forward and reclaim its worldwide pinnacle of innovation leadership, vacant from a lost era of American ingenuity, one specialized job at a time.

This is Sunalei! We rise because America needs us!