I’ve recently fallen in love with the podcasts that National Geographic is rolling out on a regular basis.
In one of them they’ve posted an interview with John Wood, an ex-Microsoft employee who got the idea of collecting books for impoverished schools in Nepal and Vietnam (and more countries?) after a vacation to the Himalayas.
He founded an organization called Room to Read and has started over 3,000 libraries already, saying he wants to set up more libraries than Starbucks has coffee shops.
But enough from me. Why not listen to this National Geographic episode yourself?
Really echo your sentiments re: John and the incredible vision he had years ago that started with a mass email to friends/family to collect books for one library on the other side of the world. My, how his vision grew wings!
Had the pleasure of connecting with John this past fall after his publisher sent me his book to review. John was kind enough to sit for an interview with DesignShare which we published here:
http://www.designshare.com/index.php/articles/room-to-read-interview
Our interest lay in introducing John’s remarkable story — and invitation — to the school design community around the world.
Great post! Really appreciate being tipped off to the National Geography episode, too.
Cheers,
Christian