I do enjoy reading.
Right now I have 7 books on my nightstand, all of them have been started in some fashion or another. My attention span is one that always has multiple books going and I have no problem picking up where I leave off when I do get back to a book.
Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood is a different book for me. About 4 hours after I began reading this book, it was finished.
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Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children by John Wood
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John Wood is a global marketing executive for Microsoft in the high tech boom days of the 90’s. He was making loads of money, traveling the world and living a fast paced lifestyle. It was not uncommon for him to work 80-90 hours of week pursuing the dream.
John decides to take a break to hike through the Himalayan mountains in Nepal where he stumbles across a small school with hundreds of children and a library filled with 2 books. And one of them was a Danielle Steele book in English. Being brought up with all the advantages of education, this deeply troubles John who promised them that he would return with books for their library.
And he did return with books – on the back of a yak.
Thus begins the odyssey of John founding an organization called Room to Read. John subsequently leaves Microsoft and all the benefits there for a journey into the non-profit world of fundraising.
The book is in no way a spiritual account of John’s life. But what John and a small group of people have accomplished is inspiring to say the least. You learn about his passions through his words as it crosses faiths and political borders and focuses on what will change the world – education.
I have looked at his website and found that currently Room to Read is not operating in Kenya or Haiti. I have inquired about what it would take to get a library in Cheppema as I got to see first hand what a difference text books make in children’s lives. Imagine what a library full of science, adventure, history and fiction books will do!
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