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 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) 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.
A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the creation or ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or services are widely consumed. Such individuals have been known by different terms throughout history, such as robber barons, captains of industry, moguls, oligarchs, plutocrats, or tai-pans.
Azim Hashim Premji is an Indian businessman and philanthropist, who was the chairman of Wipro Limited. Premji remains a non-executive member of the board and founder chairman. He is informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry. He was responsible for guiding Wipro through four decades of diversification and growth, to finally emerge as one of the global leaders in the software industry. In 2010, he was voted among the 20 most powerful men in the world by Asiaweek. He has twice been listed among the 100 most influential people by Time magazine, once in 2004 and more recently in 2011. For years, he has been regularly listed one among The 500 Most Influential Muslims. He also serves as the Chancellor of Azim Premji University, Bangalore. Premji was awarded Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian award, by the Government of India.
William Henry Gates II, better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, and also served as president of both the Seattle King County and Washington State Bar associations. He was the father of Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
Ent Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located in the Knob Hill neighborhood of Colorado Springs, Colorado. A tent city, established in 1943 during construction of the base, was initially commanded by Major General Uzal Girard Ent (1900–1948), for whom the base is named. The base was opened in 1951.
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) is a public research university in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is one of four campuses that make up the University of Colorado system. As of Fall 2023, UCCS had over 11,000 students, including more than 9,000 undergraduates and nearly 2,000 graduate students. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Inc. is an American business magazine founded in 1979 and based in New York City. The magazine publishes six issues per year, along with surrounding online and social media content. The magazine also produces several live and virtual events yearly.
Ann L. Winblad is an American businesswoman. She is a founding partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States Congress, the executive branch, and in state and local governments. The foundation's primary focus was the role of money in politics. The organization sought to increase campaign finance regulations and disclosure requirements. The Sunlight Foundation ceased operations in September 2020.
Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado, was founded in 1890 and is Denver's second oldest operating cemetery after Riverside Cemetery. It is located in land south-east of the intersection of the major Denver roadways Alameda Ave. and Quebec St.. The cemetery was designed by German landscape architect Reinhard Schuetze. The cemetery was patterned after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts. The cemetery occupies 280 acres (110 ha). The first year the cemetery opened over 4500 trees and shrubs were planted by Schuetze. The cemetery is the largest arboretum in the state.
The Computer Entrepreneur Award was created in 1982 by the IEEE Computer Society, for individuals with major technical or entrepreneurial contributions to the computer industry. The work must be public, and the award is not given until fifteen years after the developments. The physical award is a chalice from sterling silver and under the cup a gold-plated crown.
Connect is a non-profit serving the San Diego and Southern California region. Connect elevates innovators and entrepreneurs throughout their growth journey by providing educational programming, mentorship, networking events, and access to capital. The current CEO is Mike Krenn.
Sumaya Kazi is an American entrepreneur. At the age of 23, Kazi founded her first company The CulturalConnect. She later founded and was the CEO of San Francisco-based technology company Sumazi, a social intelligence platform used by brands, celebrities and enterprises. Kazi held one of the first social media management positions at a Fortune 500 company leading social media at Sun Microsystems until its acquisition by Oracle.
The Global Philanthropy Forum (GPF) is an initiative of the World Affairs Council which acts as a peer-learning network of philanthropists — grant-makers and social investors — committed to advancing equity and opportunity in the developing world. Its community of donors and social investors work on international causes through strategic philanthropy, operating on principles that overlap with those of impact investing.
In business, and only in United States corporate law, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity whose goals include making a positive impact on society. Laws concerning conventional corporations typically do not define the "best interest of society", which has led some to believe that increasing shareholder value is the only overarching or compelling interest of a corporation. Benefit corporations explicitly specify that profit is not their only goal. An ordinary corporation may change to a benefit corporation merely by stating in its approved corporate bylaws that it is a benefit corporation.
Uche Pedro is a Nigerian entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of BellaNaija, a media tech brand known for entertainment and lifestyle content. Under her leadership, BellaNaija's social footprint has grown through its collective brands - BellaNaija.com, BellaNaija Weddings and BellaNaija Style - to be the largest on the African continent with more than 200 million impressions each month.
Christian Hageseth is an American entrepreneur, author, marijuana rights advocate and business owner. He was born in Pensacola, Florida, and grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. He graduated from Arizona State University in 1992 with a degree in Political Science. He is the founder of Green Man Cannabis, an award-winning marijuana cultivation and dispensary business in Denver, Colorado. He is also the founder of American Cannabis Partners (ACP), a cannabis business development firm, which is developing the Colorado Cannabis Ranch. Hageseth is the author of Big Weed: An Entrepreneur's High Stakes Adventures in the Budding Legal Marijuana Business, published in 2015 by Macmillan.
Ganesh Kumar Bangah is a Malaysian serial entrepreneur, technology industry leader and startup investor. He is the founder of MOL Global and Commerce.Asia. He was named the Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Malaysia in 2002 and at the age of 23, was certified by the Malaysia Book of Records as the youngest Chief Executive Officer of a Malaysian public listed company. He was recognized as one of Southeast Asia's Top 30 Tech Founders by Tech In Asia in 2016 and one of the Most Inspiring Malaysian Technology Entrepreneurs by Top 10 of Malaysia. Within the local tech community, he is also known as “Malaysia’s Bill Gates”, a fact affirmed by the Malaysia's oldest newspaper, the New Straits Times.
