Pieter Geelen (born 1964) is a Dutch entrepreneur.
Geelen was born in January 1964 in Hilversum as the oldest child of the illustrator Harrie Geelen and the children's author Imme Dros. In 1991, he dropped off his Ph.D. research in Computer Science at the Universiteit van Amsterdam to found a company called Palmtop Software with his former university mate Peter-Frans Pauwels. This company was later renamed TomTom. [1]
With the €100,000,000 he acquired from TomTom's IPO in 2005, he established the Turing Foundation, a charitable organization. [2] [3]
In 2013, he founded the Mapcode Foundation, [4] another charitable organization which offers the Mapcode system he invented in 2001 with Harold Goddijn. [5]
A foundation is a type of nonprofit organization or charitable trust that usually provides funding and support to other charitable organizations through grants, while also potentially participating directly in charitable activities. Foundations encompass public charitable foundations, like community foundations, and private foundations, which are often endowed by an individual or family. Nevertheless, the term "foundation" might also be adopted by organizations not primarily engaged in public grantmaking.
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being.
John Albert Sobrato is an American billionaire real estate developer, and the founder of the Cupertino, California-based Sobrato Organization, a Silicon Valley development firm specializing in commercial and residential real estate. He has been listed as one of the richest Americans for many years, and he and his family have made large philanthropic donations to a variety of causes.
John Samuel Hendricks is an American businessman and the founder and former chairman of Discovery, Inc., a broadcasting and film production company which owned the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet networks, among other ventures. On March 20, 2014, after 32 years at the helm, he made public his intention to retire as chairman of Discovery Communications after the annual shareholders' meeting of May 16, 2014. He moved on to found CuriosityStream, an ad-free, on-demand streaming service.
Peter-Frans Pauwels is a Dutch entrepreneur.
Larry A. Mizel is an American business executive and philanthropist based in Denver, Colorado. He is executive chairman of MDC Holdings.
The Connelly Foundation is a Philadelphia philanthropic organization based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. The organization was founded in 1955 by businessman and entrepreneur John F. Connelly. Connelly headed the foundation until his death in 1990, and his wife Josephine led until her death in 1999.
Harold Goddijn is the CEO of the Dutch consumer/business electronics company TomTom since 2001.
Drummond MacGavin Pike is an American philanthropist and progressive political activist. He founded the Tides Foundation in 1976 and served as its president until 2010. He currently serves as a principal at Equilibrium Capital Group. Pike helped pioneer the advent of donor-advised funds in philanthropy.
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) is a donor-advised community foundation serving the Silicon Valley region. It is the largest charitable foundation in Silicon Valley.
The mapcode system is an open-source geocode system consisting of two groups of letters and digits, separated by a dot. It represents a location on the surface of the Earth, within the context of a separately specified country or territory. For example, the entrance to the elevator of the Eiffel Tower in Paris is “France 4J.Q2”. As with postal addresses, it is often unnecessary to explicitly mention the country.
Jeremy Hitchcock is co-founder and CEO of wifi management and IoT security startup, Minim, based in Manchester, NH. Jeremy is also a Partner at New North Ventures, which invests in artificial intelligence, cyber security and communication sectors.
Justin Waldron is an American internet entrepreneur known as the co-founder of Zynga, a mobile social gaming company, and Zynga.org, a non-profit organization to promote and facilitate the use of social games for philanthropic initiatives. In 2020 Waldron co-founded Playco, a mobile instant game company backed by Sequoia Capital, where he currently serves as president.
Eric Xu Yong is a Chinese entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as co-founder of Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine.
Geelen is a surname most common in Belgian and Dutch Limburg. In most instances it has a patronymic origin, where Geel was a variant of Giel, itself a short form of either Aegidius, Gilbert or Michiel. Notable people with this name include:
The Turing Foundation is a Dutch charitable organization, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Corinne Danièle Goddijn-Vigreux, commonly known as Corinne Vigreux, is a French business executive and entrepreneur. She is a co-founder of the Dutch consumer electronics company TomTom where she has been Managing Director of the Consumer Business Unit since 2008.
Chen Yidan, also known as Charles Chen, is a Chinese internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Tencent, founder of the Chen Yidan Charity Foundation, and founder of the Yidan Prize Foundation.
Ed Mitzen is an American entrepreneur, business executive and philanthropist. He is the founder and CEO of Fingerpaint Marketing, and also the co-founder of the non-profit organization Business for Good. Prior to founding Fingerpaint, Mitzen co-founded the ad agency Palio, which was sold to inVentiv Health in 2006.