What began as a vision to share his love of reading with children of a rural Nepali village has quickly become a global movement of promoting literacy and education. By the end of 2009, John Wood’s organization, “Room to Read” counts over 7,500 libraries, 830 schools, and nearly 8,800 attending school by way of Room to Read scholarships. Room to Read plans to open its 10,000th library in 2010 and impact the lives of 5 million children in the developing world.

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It all started in 1998, when John, then a rising executive at Microsoft, took a vacation that changed his life. What started as a trekking holiday in Nepal became a spiritual journey and then a mission: to change the world one book and one child at a time by setting up libraries in the developing world. He was soon driven to leave his career with only a loose vision of the change he wanted to bring to the world.

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John made the unlikely marriage between Microsoft business practices and the world of non-profits to create Room to Read, an organization that has created a network of libraries and schools throughout rural and poor communities in Asia and Africa. The organization is now one of the fastest growing, most effective, and award-winning non-profits of the last decade. John has been recognized in the worldwide media as a “21st century Andrew Carnegie,” building a public library infrastructure to help the developing world break the cycle of poverty through the lifelong gift of education.

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Witness his story in his own words in the following short video.

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