William Henry Gates III is an American businessman and philanthropist best known for co-founding the software company Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. He later held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect of the company. Gates was also its largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Melinda French Gates is an American philanthropist and a former multimedia product developer and manager at Microsoft. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, she graduated from Duke University and started working at Microsoft in 1987. Shortly afterwards, she began dating the company's co-founder and then-CEO Bill Gates, whom she married in 1994. In 2000, she and Gates co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization. The couple, who have three children together, divorced in 2021. In 2024, she resigned from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue philanthropy independently, having received $12.5 billion for charitable work as part of her separation agreement.
The Gates Foundation is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the third largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $69 billion in assets as of 2020. The primary stated goals of the foundation are to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the world, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S. Key individuals of the foundation include Warren Buffett, chief executive officer Mark Suzman, and Michael Larson.
Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of Netflix, Inc.. Hastings serves on a number of boards and works with various non-profit organizations. A former president of the California State Board of Education, Hastings is also an advocate for charter schools. He is the majority owner and chief executive officer of Powder Mountain, a Utah ski resort.
L. John Doerr is an American investor and venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, California. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. Forbes ranked Doerr as the 40th richest person in tech in 2017, and as of August 1, 2023, as the 146th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$11.9 billion. Doerr is the author of Measure What Matters, a book about goal-setting, and Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.
Elias Zerhouni is an Algerian-born American scientist, radiologist and biomedical engineer.
Philanthrocapitalism or philanthropic capitalism is a way of doing philanthropy, which mirrors the way that business is done in the for-profit world. It may involve venture philanthropy that actively invests in social programs to pursue specific philanthropic goals that would yield return on investment over the long term, or in a more passive form whereby "social investors" benefit from investing in socially-responsible programs.
DSST Public Schools (DSST), formerly known as the Denver School of Science and Technology, is a public charter STEM network comprising 16 schools on eight campuses in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, United States, in partnership with Denver Public Schools. DSST is ranked among the top 200 public high schools in the US.
Strong American Schools, a project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, is a nonprofit organization supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that seeks to promote sound education policies for all Americans. Through its “ED in 08” information and nonpartisan advocacy campaign, it sought to inspire a debate about America’s schools and to make education a top priority in the 2008 presidential election.
Allan Golston is the president of the United States Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's five areas of strategy, policy and advocacy, and operations of a $600 million domestic program with $3.8 billion portfolio under management: K-12 Education, Post-Secondary Education, Technology Access, Special Initiatives, and Family Homelessness, Early Childhood Learning, and Community Grants in Washington State.
The Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools was a nonprofit membership association based in Columbus, Ohio that was formed in 2006. It was composed of more than 200 charter school and related organizational members. It provides advocacy and technical support services for member schools.
DreamBox Learning is an American online software provider that focuses on mathematics education and reading education at the elementary, middle school, and for reading, the high school level. The mathematics software provides pre-kindergarten through 8th-grade students with over 2,000 lessons presented as animated adventures, games, and challenges, while the reading software provides students in elementary to high school levels with articles to boost their reading skills.
Trevor Neilson is an American businessperson, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of WasteFuel, a company that produces renewable fuels using proven technologies to address the climate emergency and revolutionize mobility.
Carrie Walton Penner is the granddaughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, and the daughter of former company chairman S. Robson Walton.
Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) is a non-profit organization serving Silicon Valley. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the SVEF creates resources and programs for students and educators in Silicon Valley in Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) is a Canadian nonprofit organization that employs a Grand Challenges model with the aim to fund solutions for health and economic problems in low-and middle-income countries and Canada.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools is a non-profit trade association serving the charter school industry.
Inside Bill's Brain: Decoding Bill Gates is a 2019 three-part documentary television series created and directed by Davis Guggenheim. The series explores the mind and motivations of Bill Gates, co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft and founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, together with his then-wife.
Excelencia in Education, also referred to as Excelencia, is an American non-profit organization founded in 2004 by Sarita E. Brown and Deborah A. Santiago. It is classified as a Research Institute and Public Policy Analysis group focused on Educational Institutions. Excelencia's stated mission is to "accelerate Latino student success in higher education". Excelencia's research is conducted to gather information on the relationship between Latino students and their programs, and is published through Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and educational journals, such as Insight into Diversity and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Excelencia regularly recognizes programs and institutions that support the Latino community through higher education. Excelencia publishes an annual list of Hispanic Serving Institutions and emerging Hispanic Serving Institutions.
Mojaloop is an open-source software project of the Mojaloop Foundation. The project is a reference model for creating interoperable payments platforms for digital financial providers intended to reduce the technical barrier of financial inclusion efforts. It was created and released by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Level One Project in 2017. Moja is a Swahili word meaning "one".
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