“Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”

John WOOD , “Leaving Microsoft to Change the World”


As far as I checked online, Best Seller Book Store is the most familiar place among foreigners than any other shops in Budapest. Despite the reputation of the shop, however, it has none of those which I had longed for ages. Therefore, I ordered the shop master to ship 4 books from U.K. which I estimated to be able to finish them up within 3 month. It is always hard to try on English book, patience and so much time would be required. Since I have a habit to read 7 or 8 kinds of books at the same time, I had no clue how long would it take to cover them all. Books arrived 1 month later, and I have just accomplished over this as first one.

“Leaving Microsoft to Change the World” is a self biography written by one former Microsoft director of China and Asia Pacific area who made up his mind to quit the post and decided to establish his own organization named “Room to Read” so as to give educational opportunities toward uneducated children all over the world. According to the website, already 5,900 libraries were built since 2000 to present and 1.8 million children obtained the chance to go to school.

His one time holiday trip for Nepal changed whole his life drastically. There, by accident, he visited local primary schools lacking something supposed to be with; Library. After the struggling of leaving huge amount of salary and life with his girl, finally he decided to start up the NGO.

Before long, John met with 17-year-old boy named Vu in Vietnam. His family cannot afford him to go to high school. He is working at hostel reception for 12 hours 7 days long in a week, both in daytime and night time. After the job, he changes his cloth, takes shower, and starts to study computer and language. Because of this he can speak good English although he has only graduated from junior high school. He says he even wants to study other 3 languages at least:French, German and Japanese. Usually he cannot take a sleep longer than 4 hours, sleeping at the storage of the hostel, lying on the card box and wearing thin blanket. There, John succeeded to pass the scholarship for his first time. And his idea and activities would start expanding…

I had been in charge of Development traineeship at the times when I was in AIESEC. So I have checked so many organizations’ websites for searching suitable NGO as my 1st traineeship, also for 2-weeks-NGO visiting tour in Philippine. But I hardly know any other such simple, well informed, and business like website than that of Room to Read. Full of information. Author also says it is the key to collect the donation that opening as much information as possible and trying to let sponsors easily understand the results. Portfolio, graph, exact number of educated children by John…. I, at least want readers to visit its home page. In this point, I can say this is not just about the history of one NGO, but also about how-to-think-efficiently or how-to-build-creative-business-mind stuff.

John’s business methods, his passion, local children’s desire for education, the enthusiasm of adults in developing country who are keen to give the chance to their children…. All these are included. Unlike my anxiety, this book gave so much fun enough to finish this up faster than I expected.