Open Learning ExchangeUniversal Basic Education 2015

Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer PRG- Schultz International, Inc.

Cook has been the primary benefactor of the Human Development Foundation of Bangkok (Thailand), which supports Mercy Centre, Bangkok’s first AIDS hospice, which focuses on children and mothers with the disease. Seeking to alleviate the suffering of children in Klong Toey, Bangkok’s largest slum community, Mercy Centre also operates an orphanage and a series of schools, helping over 5,000 children a year to qualify for public education.

Cook founded and serves as chairman of the board of the South Asia Children’s Fund, which supports innovative educational programs for disadvantaged children, primarily in Nepal and India. Read more…

Astrid Dufborg is a Swedish national with an educational background in political science. Ms Dufborg spent 30 years working with the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida) and was stationed in four African countries over a ten year period. Her last positions at Sida was as Director for the Department for Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation, and Assistant Director General. Before joining GeSCI, Ms Dufborg worked as an Ambassador and ICT Adviser based at the Swedish UN Mission in Geneva – where she led the Swedish work within the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Ms Dufborg has represented Sweden at the UN ICT Task Force since 2001, when she convened the Working Group on ‘Enabling Environment’ and was appointed Vice-Chair of the Global e-Schools and Communities initiative (GeSCI). Astrid Dufborg became Executive Director of GeSCI on March 1, 2006.

William Foote is the president and founder of Root Capital (formerly EcoLogic Finance), a social investment fund that provides affordable credit, financial education and market access to environmentally sustainable, grassroots enterprises in the developing world. Mr. Foote has an extensive background in cross-border investment and economic development in Latin America and Africa.

Mr. Foote is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and currently serves on the Sustainability Committee of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Since 2005, Root Capital has received the Fast Company/ Monitor Group Social Capitalist Award; the International Chamber of Commerce/ UNDP/ Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum World Business Award in support of the Millennium Development Goals; and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Read more…

Anne Margulies is the Assistant Secretary for Information Technology & Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Prior to this, Anne served as an executive director of OpenCourseWare at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a large scale Web-based initiative that provides free, world-wide access to MIT’s course materials.

Before joining MIT, Anne was the chief operating officer at FH/GPC, a government relations, public affairs and communications consulting firm where she was responsible for the overall performance of the firm. Prior to her time at FH/GPC, Anne was the executive vice-president of McDermott O’Neill & Associates, where she restructured the senior management team and planned and managed the sale of the company to GPC International. Read more…

Richard Rowe is a Founding Partner of the Open Learning Exchange, Inc. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in clinical psychology in 1963. In the1970’s served as Associate Dean of the Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and as Director of the university’s interfaculty Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice. He has conducted research concerning assessment of social interventions and has been an advocate for early childhood education. He has served as Chair of the Massachusetts Statewide Advisory Committee for the Office for Children, as a member of the Massachusetts State Board of Education where he served both as Chair of the Selection committee for the Commissioner of Education and of the Education Reform Review Committee. He has served as Chair of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education.

Dr. Rowe has focused on domestic and global policy issues related to education and services for children, families and strong communities as well as on public policy and technical issues concerning intellectual property.Read more…

Matthew’s long-standing research investigates the translation-transmission of content across boundaries of culture, particularly during moments of tremendous social transformation, such as the current transition from material to digital environments. His recent interest focuses upon the way systems of authority respond to increasingly democratic access to knowledge.

Matthew has served as Assistant Director to the Media and Communications Programme at Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien, as well as Content Curator and co-founder of the Content Working Group at One Laptop Per Child. Read more…

Paul works in the technology group at OLE as Lead Software Engineer where he is working on federation of the databases. His current tasks include mirroring, archiving, and search dispatch between dissimilar databases.

Paul’s background in helping the “differently abled” at companies like Articulate and MacSpeech helped him create accessible and intuitive applications and keeps him focused on working with companies that do good in the world. He finds software engineering interesting because of its complexity. “It’s like creating a tapestry,” he notes. “Every thread has to be in the right spot or the tapestry won’t be wonderful.”

He brings with him the ability to see the whole of a problem along with how different parts of it relate to each other.

Paul has been a software engineer for over twenty years and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and engineering from MIT. He is active in several online communities and coauthored a chapter in Wiley Publishing’s Official Guide to Second Life. He lives on outer Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA.

Read more…

Robyn is a communications and capacity building expert with a focus on information, communication technology and education projects. Prior to becoming president of Linkages Consulting in the fall of 2001, Robyn was Vice President of the Software Human Resource Council. The Council is one of more than 30 supported by the Canadian Federal government in a globally acknowledged success strategy. The Councils are positioned as a link between government, education and industry and are considered an important delivery mechanism for skills and learning in Canada.

While with Linkages Consulting Robyn participated in a number of knowledge based projects in Canada and abroad and is recognized for her ability to create and implement strategic visions with concrete results. Read more…

As CTO, Charlie Kohl brings a broad range of experience in enterprise solution development to the OLE team. Throughout his career, Charlie has focused on the design, implementation, and deployment of distributed and extensible solutions to complex and evolving requirements.

As Chief Global Architect at X-Rite, Charlie has led the development of open standards for the representation of color data, and has architected and managed the creation of a software infrastructure to utilize that data across global enterprises. Prior to X-Rite, Charlie designed and developed web-based collaboration and communication solutions for not-for-profits as a Founding Partner of Enspheres. Read more…

Prior to Treeno, Jim helped build large-scale organizations throughout the world at Prime Computer, Lotus/IBM, RoweCom and Parametric Technologies.

Jim started Lotus’ professional education business in 1992 and led that organization through several years of successful growth to become a two hundred million dollar division in over sixty countries before joining IBM to manage its global distance learning division. Read more…

Tom has extensive experience serving on the boards of a variety of social benefit organizations, focusing on international wildlife protection, reproductive health and access, and indigenous peoples. His personal interests have led him to projects resulting in an EMMY-nominated documentary, award-winning curricula, and educational workshops and symposia.

Joseph Rappa became the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Office of Educational Quality and Accountability in September of 2001. He has over 20 years of experience as an administrator in public education. Dr. Rappa is a member of the American Society for Curriculum and Development; the American Association of School Administrators; the American Vocational Association; the Organizational Development Network; Phi Delta Kappa; the American Education Research Association; the American Society for Public Administration. Read more…

See above

Niva Shrestha is a licensed social worker in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She completed her undergraduate degree in Social Work from St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu, Nepal and Masters degree in Social work from Marywood University, PA. Prior to joining Open Learning Exchange, Niva worked as a Program Director/Social Worker at an Adult Day Health Center in Somerville, MA.

Niva is originally from Nepal. She is fluent in Nepali and Hindi. She is an executive member of Help Nepal Network - USA and currently serves as a treasurer. Niva also served as a secretary for Greater Boston Nepalese Community from 2002 to 2003.

Andrew Wetmore joined OLE at the end of December, 2007 as User Experience Director. He is building the front ends for the many online tools and portals that will be part of the ToolKits OLE provides to each national Open Learning Exchange. Read more…