There are many great stories about Nepal, but Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children by John Wood, is especially moving. The title is a bit off-putting, until you look at the facts: John Wood was a head honcho at Microsoft, when a trip to Nepal led him in another direction. In 2000, he started the non-profit Room to Read, based in San Francisco, an organization that builds schools, libraries, and computer labs and provides long-term scholarships for girls as well as opportunities for local language book publishing in hard to reach areas in developing countries. To date, they have built 287 schools, 3540 libraries, and 117 computer and language labs, donated 1.4 million English language children’s books, published 144 local language children’s titles, and given 2336 long-term scholarships to girls in eight countries in Asia and Africa, and Room to Read plans on expanding to Central and South America in 2008.
This book is an entertaining read, but it also personally inspiring to me: I, who will probably never be deeply invested in corporate America professionally, greatly value someone with that level of business savvy choosing to put his talent in the non-profit sector. His model works. It’s not just the big dog learning to tolerate the underdog, it’s doing away with such distinctions altogether, recognizing the equal potential and value of each individual, and living, personally and professionally, from that place of knowing.
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