Advisors
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 two decades working on projects in Africa. His early research resulted in the development of FrontlineSMS, an award-winning text messaging field communication system aimed at grassroots non-profit organisations.
Ken graduated from Sussex University with honours in Social Anthropology with Development Studies, 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. He was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer in May 2010 and an Ashoka Fellow in 2011, was the recipient of the 2011 Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest, and was selected as a member of the UK Prime Minister’s delegation to Africa in July 2011. In 2012 the Cambridge business community presented Ken with a “Special Achievement Award” for his work as a social entrepreneur. Later that year he was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In addition to his own work, Ken also mentors early-stage entrepreneurs through Pop!Tech and the Unreasonable Institute.
Following a management transition at FrontlineSMS in mid-2012, Ken has been focusing on a new project, Means of Exchange, which looks at how everyday technologies can be used to democratise opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, rebuild local communities and promote a return to local resource use.
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.
Bill Haerle
AMD and Inveneo
Bill Haerle is an Inveneo Advisor and served on the Broadband for Good team as an Inveneo Fellow. He has great experience in the high-tech and telecommunications industries. Previously Bill was AMD Director, Strategy & Market Development focusing on technology and international issues. In this capacity he coordinated export controls and technology transfer activities, oversaw AMD China interaction with the Chinese and U.S. governments, and assisted AMD Brazil, Russia, and India with government procurement, tech transfer, and strategic partnerships. Prior to joining AMD in 2001, Bill developed legislative strategies and built advocacy partnerships in the tech community for a major telecommunications company. He has also served as Vice President, Government Relations for the American Electronics Association (now TechAmerica) where his responsibilities included advocacy on behalf of 3,000 high-tech companies with federal, state, and local elected officials.
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.
