Will Poole, 2009

Best Recent Headline:  NComputing bets big on Indian market.

A Social Technologist's Approach to Creative Capitalism

Creative Capitalism. I am working both in the commercial realm and with non-profit endeavors, using the model commonly called creative capitalism at Microsoft and elsewhere. My interpretation of Creative Capitalism is applying rigorous capitalist business principles to build products, organizations, and markets that grow and thrive in their own right, while at the same time achieving social and economic development goals. I am working to help companies do this at scale, with global impact. More on Creative Capitalism here.

Walking the Talk. From the fall of 2008, I've been looking into how to expand upon some of the work I pioneered in the Unlimited Potential Group. Building on the good efforts of Microsoft and many other contributors to the ICT4D space, I am working to apply advanced technological solutions to some of the most fundamental issues facing under-served populations of the world, focusing first on education. See more of my approach to ICD4D projects here.

Current Projects. I work on about 6 large projects at any one time. As of the second half of 2010, they are:

• Co-chairman of NComputing.  An innovative company that is pursuing a conventional high-growth venture startup path, and at the same time delivering vital infrastructure to technologically under-served customers and markets. NComputing is already improving the education of millions of school children and the efficacy of teachers around the world, with over 2 million units installed as of Q4 2009.

• Co-Chairman of Pengala, which is helping students "Learn More, Faster".  They shipped their version 2.0 learning platform software in June 2010, and are ramping up deployments in schools and with various partners in India.

• Member of the University of Washington Center for Commercialization advisory board, helping the Vice Provost and her team accelerate the pace of quality of commercialization of the $1B of research conducted through the UW every year.  Also working as a "LaunchPad Entrepreneurial Advisor", mentoring faculty early in their commercialization process on company formation, business and technology strategies.

• Member of the advisory board for University of Washington's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (iLABS), an interdisciplinary center dedicated to discovering the fundamental principles of human learning. 

• Board member at the Voices Education Project, increasing peace and cross-cultural understanding through storytelling.

• Board member at MOD Systems, startup bringing digital movie and music distribution to retail point-of-sale devices.

• Angel investor, coach, and board member to a small group of startups, bringing creative capitalism and environmentally-sound development perspectives.

  • Two new efforts are moving along nicely: one green boating company which should emerge from stealth-mode this summer, and one consumer digital media app company.. 

  • Recently engaged as strategic advisor to Boopsie, a search-based mobile apps startup. 

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