Microsoft Alumni Foundation – 2011 Integral Fellows Award Winners

Last night, at the Microsoft Alumni Foundation 2011 Celebration, Bill and Melinda Gates recognized the nominees, finalists and three award-winning Microsoft alumni as the 2011 Integral Fellows. This is the third annual Foundation celebration honoring former Microsoft employees who have used their talents, time, and resources to make a meaningful difference in the daily lives of others. The Integral Fellows Awards Program winners receive an unrestricted $25,000 grant for their nonprofit organizations and access to the talents and skills of other alumni to help support their ongoing efforts.

“As a catalytic organization, the job of the Microsoft Alumni Foundation is to connect, inspire, and build a community of philanthropists,” said Marylou Brannan, Executive Director, of the Microsoft Alumni Foundation. “We celebrate this year’s Integral Fellows winners and all the Microsoft alumni nominees for the work they and their nonprofit organizations are doing. It is through their dedication and innovation that they are helping to change people’s lives.”

The three award winners and their nonprofit organizations are:

Oliver Hurst-Hiller – DonorsChoose.org, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President. Oliver is passionate about getting critical learning resources to students in high-need communities and empowering front-line educators to be innovators in the classroom. http://donorschoose.org

Tom Ikeda – Densho, Founder and Executive Director. After digging deeper into the struggles and sacrifices barely mentioned in the history books, in 1996 Tom made the commitment to share the untold stories of Japanese Americans and founded Densho. http://densho.org

David Risher – Worldreader, Co-Founder. During a visit to the Perpetuo Socorro girl’s orphanage in Guayaquil, Ecuador, David observed piles of books inside its semi-abandoned library, and in that moment, David realized the profound impact that e-readers could have on the way the developing world learns to read. http://worldreader.org

SOURCE The Microsoft Alumni Foundation