Nationality American Name David Risher | ||
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Born July 15, 1965 (age 58) ( 1965-07-15 ) Bethesda, MD Known for President & Co-founder of Worldreader Education Harvard Business School, Princeton University | ||
Organizations founded Worldreader | ||
Vip speaker series david risher
John David Risher (born July 15, 1965) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the President and co-founder of Worldreader, a non-profit organization that aims to bring digital books to the developing world through mobile phones and e-readers.
Contents
- Vip speaker series david risher
- David risher s story worldreader
- Early life and background
- Career
- Recognition
- References
Risher served as an executive at Microsoft Corporation, and was Senior Vice President of US Retail at Amazon.com from 1997 to 2002. In November 2009, together with Colin McElwee, he founded Worldreader.
David risher s story worldreader
Early life and background
Risher grew up in his mother's house in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
In 1987 he graduated from Princeton University, where he majored in Comparative Literature and wrote his thesis on “The Changing Attitudes towards Language in Samuel Beckett’s early Metafiction.”
After graduating from college, he worked at L.E.K. Consulting, and then bicycled across the United States before entering Harvard Business School, graduating in 1991.
Career
At Microsoft, Risher was General Manager in charge of launching the company’s first database product, Access. He went on to found and manage Microsoft Investor. In 1997, he left Microsoft to join Amazon.com as Vice President of Product and Store development. He later served as the company’s Senior Vice President, US Retail, overseeing the marketing and general management of Amazon’s retail operations.
After leaving Amazon in 2002, Risher taught at the University of Washington’s Foster Business School, where he created the University’s course on “Competing on the Internet.” He was elected Professor of the Year in 2004.
Risher founded Worldreader after a year-long trip around the world with his family, home-schooling his daughters and volunteering at a school in China. After visiting an orphanage in Ecuador, Risher saw how e-reader technology could give kids in remote and under-served parts of the world access to books.
Worldreader is a Barcelona, Spain, and US-based 501c public charity whose mission is “to create a world where everyone can be a reader.” In March 2009, Worldreader launched a trial in Ayenyah, Ghana. Worldreader reports that, after receiving positive results, they were granted permission from Ghana’s Ministry of Education to distribute e-readers to additional schools in Ghana.
Risher is an invited member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a Draper Richards Kaplan Social Entrepreneur. He serves on the International Advisory Board of ESADE, and sits on the International Advisory Board of Catalunya.