John Wood – Room To Read

Victor "Global X" d'Allant
Former Executive Director, Social Edge

John Wood, founder of Room To Read, is convinced that changing the world starts with educating children: "I strongly believe in education. It has made me who I am today, and most likely who you are."

As an "overworked, stressed Microsoft executive" trekking in Nepal, he met the head of a small school with a library that had no books. The headmaster told him: "We are too poor to afford education, but until we have education, we will always be poor."

Since this moment of epiphany that prompted him to leave Microsoft in 1999, Room To Read has built a network of 765 schools and 7,000 libraries with five million books, serving three million children.

His advice to fellow social entrepreneurs: "My favorite three letters are GSD! Get shit done, let’s get out there, let’s change the world, action is better than talk!"