-HOW THEY HELPED --WHAT THEY DID -

JOHN WOOD GREG MORTENSON

Social Entrepreneurs

-JOHN WOOD-

-John J. Wood (born January 1964) is the Founder of Room to Read, a global non-profit organization focused on literacy and gender equality in education. Room to Read works in ten countries in Asia and Africa, and helps children in education by donating things like books.-Author of "Creating Room to Read: A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy", Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children and the children's book Zak the Yak with Books on His Back.

-GREG MORTENSON-

-Greg Mortenson (born December 27, 1957) is an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer, and former mountaineer. He is a co-founder and former executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute.-Mortenson is the co-author of The New York Times Bestseller, Three Cups of Tea, which stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 220 weeks.-He once got lost and when he was recovering in a village, he saw that the children there were writing their lessons on the ground. When he recovered, he promised that he would return and build a school for them.

-JOHN WOOD’S IMPACT-

-Wood took a vacation from his work at Microsoft in 1998 to trek through the Himalayas. While trekking, he met a “resource director” for the schools in the Annapurna Circuit of Nepal, with whom he visited a primary school that contained 450 children and only a handful of books, none age-appropriate. A year later, Wood returned to the school with 3,000 books—all donated in response to his email appeal to friends and family. Soon thereafter, he left his job at Microsoft entirely to devote himself full-time to Books for Nepal, a side project that would eventually form the foundation for Room to Read. The organization celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2010, which included the opening of its 10,000th library, construction of its 1,000th school, and support of its 10,000th girl through the organization's Girls' Education program.

-GREG MORTENSON’S IMPACT-

-Mortenson describes the origins of his humanitarian work in his best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea. -Mortenson has written and spoken widely about the importance of education and literacy for girls worldwide. He has further stated that girls' education is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality and population explosion, as well as improving health, hygiene, and sanitation standards. -From 2006 through 2011, Greg Mortenson promoted his book as well as fundraising and promoting girls' education through public speaking events at schools throughout the United States. Travel expenses for his speaking engagements were paid for by Central Asia Institute through the end of 2010.

-Credits, team members-

-All images and information used belong to their respective owners.-Information from Wikipedia, images from Google Images.

-TEAM MEMBERS--Parameswaran-Cristian Leong-Joel Tse-Nathan Teo