Kristine Pearson Awarded World Technology Fellowship

Freeplay Foundation Executive Director Kristine Pearson has become a fellow of the prestigious World Technology Network (WTN), including lifetime membership in the Network.

Pearson was one of five global social entrepreneur finalists recognised with fellowships at the 2004 World Technology Summit's awards gala on 8 October. Fabio Luis de Oliveira Rosa, executive director of the Institute for the Development of Natural Energy and Sustainability in Brazil, won the social entrepreneurship award.

The accepted definition of a social entrepreneur is one who innovates by finding new products and approaches to a social problem and applying them in a practical and sustainable manner. As a WTN social entrepreneur fellow, Ms. Pearson joins a select membership composed of more than 700 scientists, financiers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists, and policymakers spread out over 50 countries. Members are selected through the judgment of their peers. WTN accepts no unsolicited nominations.

"I am honoured to join the ranks of the World Technology Network," said Pearson. "The Network provides another significant platform for the Freeplay Foundation to promote its mission of bridging the analogue divide in the developing world, using Lifeline radios. For people who earn less than a dollar a day, paying $5 a month, the average cost of batteries to power a radio for 5 hours a day, is unaffordable. The vicious cycle of poverty and its offspring, ignorance, continues as they are denied access to information and education that can help progress toward a better economic future. The Freeplay Foundation is part of the solution to providing access to information to everyone, especially the most marginalised members of society, women and children living on their own."

The World Technology Network describes itself as "a cross between a global meeting ground, a virtual think tank, and an elite club whose members are all focused on the business or science of bringing important emerging technologies into reality." Headquartered in London, the WTN promotes interaction among its members via global roundtables, annual summits, and publications. Current members include author/thinker Arthur C. Clarke, Bill Gates, Antonio Rodota of the European Space Agency, INSEAD's Robert Ayres, Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, and Titanic director James Cameron. WTN sponsors include NASDAQ, Microsoft, and CNN among others.

In less than two years, 50,000 Lifeline radios have been committed to projects covering twelve countries, impacting the lives of an estimated one million listeners a day. The Freeplay Foundation is answering the call to put technology into the hands of the people who most need it, thereby helping to prevent disease, mitigate poverty and improve quality of life.