Inveneo

Advisory Council

Ken Banks

FrontlineSMS and kiwanja.net


Ken Banks, founder of kiwanja.net, devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change in the developing world, and has spent the last 16 years working on projects in Africa. Recently, his research resulted in the development of FrontlineSMS, an award-winning text messaging-based field communication system designed to empower grassroots non-profit organizations. Ken graduated from Sussex University with honors in Social Anthropology with Development Studies, and was awarded a Stanford University Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship in 2006, and named a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow in 2008. In 2009 he was named a Laureate of the Tech Awards, an international awards program which honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. Ken's work has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, and he is the current recipient of grants from HIVOS, the Hewlett Foundation and Open Society Institute.


Gerry Douglas

Baobab Health Trust


Gerry Douglas is the founder of Baobab Health, a non-profit organization based in Malawi that is revolutionizing healthcare delivery in lower-income countries. Baobab's cornerstone is using medical informatics principles to improve healthcare delivery in Malawian hospitals and clinics. By empowering clinicians with robust, low-power, inexpensive clinical workstations at the point of care, they have significantly decreased documentation errors and vastly improved continuity of care for the patients, particularly with HIV/AIDS. Their touchscreen clinical workstation appliance has generated significant interest amongst the international healthcare community. Baobab is committed to a philosophy of creating free and open source software and building in-country capacity to develop and support local systems.

Gerry splits his time between Malawi and Pittsburgh, USA. He holds a Diploma in Electronics, BS (hons) in Computer Science from the University of Victoria, an MS in Information Science and a PhD in Biomedical Informatics from the University of Pittsburgh. Gerry was named a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Fellow in 2009.


Clyde Rodriguez

Microsoft


Clyde brings both a personal passion for ICT4D as well as broad industry experience in technology solutions development. Most recently Clyde was Vice President of AMD's Internet Solutions Group, an incubation effort focused on low-cost computing and partners like Inveneo, UNICEF and various world governments. He served as Chief of Staff and Advisor to AMD's former Chairman and CEO, who recruited Clyde to the company. Prior to AMD Clyde worked for eleven years in Microsoft's Windows engineering team, culminating in his leading the development of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 SP1 for 64-bit architectures. He began his career in robotics research at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and later worked for Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer Corporation, Berkeley Systems (makers of the original flying toasters screen saver), Logitech, UC Berkeley's School of Education and Chevron Corporation. Clyde also co-founded GlobalCast Communications, a network solutions company.

Clyde has a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley and a certificate in International Business from the University of Washington.

More importantly, Clyde's interest in working with Inveneo stems from personal history. He recognizes the role that an inexpensive computer (a TRS-80 Color Computer that he still owns) had in transforming his life as a kid in a migrant farm-working family to a rewarding career in the high tech industry.


Ethan Zuckerman

Global Voices, Berkman Center at Harvard Law School


Ethan Zuckerman is an activist, academic and engineer whose work focuses on technology in the developing world. In 2004, he co-founded Global Voices, an award-winning international citizen media network. Ethan became a fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School in January 2003. His work at Berkman focuses on the impact of technology on the developing world. His current projects include a study of global media attention, research on the use of weblogs and other social software in the developing world, and the use of web 2.0 technologies by activists.

Prior to his work at Harvard, Ethan was involved with founding several Internet start-ups. He helped co-found Tripod, an early pioneer in the web community space. Ethan served as Tripod's first graphic designer and developer, and later as VP of Business Development and VP of Research and Development. After Tripod's acquisition by Lycos in 1998, Ethan served as General Manager of the Angelfire.com division and as a member of the Lycos mergers and acquisitions team. Ethan then went on to found Geekcorps, a non-profit group that provided technology assistance to governments and companies in the developing world.

Ethan graduated from Williams College with a BA in Philosophy in 1993. In 1993-4, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Legon, Ghana and the National Theatre of Ghana, studying ethnomusicology and percussion. He lives the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts with his wife Rachel. He serves on the boards of regional and international organizations that focus on technology and education, including on the sub-board of the Open Society Institute's US Program.