Microsoft Alumni Foundation Honors 2009 Integral Fellows.

Former President Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. the United States Naval Academy. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant.

He married Rosalynn Smith and together operated his family’s business, Carter's Warehouse, a general-purpose seed and farm supply company in Plains. He quickly became a leader of the community, serving on county boards supervising education, the hospital authority, and the library. In 1962 he won election to the Georgia Senate. He lost his first gubernatorial campaign in 1966, but won the next election, becoming Georgia's seventy-sixth governor in 1971. He was the Democratic National Committee campaign chairman for the 1974 congressional and gubernatorial elections.

Mr. Carter served as President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. Significant foreign policy accomplishments of his administration included the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. He championed human rights throughout the world. On the domestic side, the administration's achievements included a comprehensive energy program conducted by a new Department of Energy; deregulation in energy, transportation, communications, and finance; major educational programs under a new Department of Education; and major environmental protection legislation, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

He is a prolific author, publishing and co-authoring 24 books, many of which are now in revised editions. In 1982, he became University Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and founded The Carter Center, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization working to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering. The Center has improved the quality of life for millions of people in more than 70 nations. Carter Center staff join with President Carter in efforts to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions. The Center is spearheading the international effort to eradicate Guinea worm disease, which will be the second disease in history to be eliminated, and pioneering efforts in poor nations to control neglected diseases such as river blindness, trachoma, schistosomiasis, and lymphatic filariasis.

Mr. Carter and The Carter Center have engaged in conflict mediation in Ethiopia and Eritrea (1989), North Korea (1994), Liberia (1994), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1994), Sudan (1995), the Great Lakes region of Africa (1995-96), Sudan and Uganda (1999), Venezuela (2002-2003), Nepal (2004-2008), and Ecuador and Colombia (2008). Under his leadership, The Carter Center has sent 77 election-monitoring missions to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These include Panama (1989), Nicaragua (1990), Guyana (1992), China (1997), Nigeria (1998), Indonesia (1999), East Timor (1999), Mexico (2000), Guatemala (2003), Venezuela (2004), Ethiopia (2005), Liberia (2005), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2006), Nepal (2008), and Lebanon (2009).

Mr. and Mrs. Carter volunteer one week a year for Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that helps needy people in the United States and in other countries renovate and build homes for themselves. He also teaches Sunday school and is a deacon in the Maranatha Baptist Church of Plains. For recreation, he enjoys fly-fishing, woodworking, cycling, tennis, and skiing. The Carters have three sons, one daughter, eight grandsons, three granddaughters, and two great-grandsons.
On Dec. 10, 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2002 to Mr. Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Bill Drayton

Chair & Chief Executive Officer of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur. As a student at Harvard, Balliol College in Oxford University and Yale Law School, he founded a number of organizations including Harvard’s Ashoka Table, an interdisciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences, and Yale Legislative Services to help legislatures across the Northeast.

In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School and began his career at McKinsey and Company in New York. From 1977 to 1981, Mr. Drayton served as Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where he launched emissions trading (the basis of Kyoto) among other reforms. He has also taught at Stanford Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
In 1981, while working part-time at McKinsey and Company in New York, he launched both Ashoka and Save EPA and its successor, Environmental Safety. After being elected a MacArthur Fellow in 1984, he was able to devote himself to his career as a social entrepreneur.

Mr. Drayton is currently the Chair & Chief Executive Officer of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. He is also Chair of Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working! and is a trustee of the Black Rock Forest. He is an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College at Oxford University and also of Pennsylvania Law School, and Polytechnic University gave him an Honorary Doctor of Laws. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The National Academy of Public Administration, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Yale’s School of Management gave him its Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence and the Law School its Award of Merit.

Mr. Drayton has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. In 2005, he was selected one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. Other recognitions include The National Public Service Award from the National Academy of Public Administration and the American Society for Public Administration, the Public Service Achievement Award from Common Cause, the Vanguard Award for Achievements in Nonprofit Law from the American Bar Association, the Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation, the 2007 Goi Peace Award (Japan), and the Civil Society Development Award from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. In 2008, he was recognized by Tufts University’s Institute for Global Leadership with the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, and Americans for Informed Democracy’s Social Innovator in Smart Investing Award. In 2009, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yale University.

William H. Gates Sr.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Co-chair

William H. Gates Sr. guides the vision and strategic direction of the foundation and serves as an advocate for the foundation’s key issues. He first answered his son's request for help in using his resources to improve reproductive and child health in the developing world by directing the William H. Gates Foundation, which was established in 1994. It merged with the Gates Learning Foundation to create the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000.

Gates earned his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Washington, following three years of U.S. Army service in World War II. A founding partner at Preston Gates & Ellis, Gates has served as president of both the Seattle/King County Bar Association and the Washington State Bar Association. He has served as trustee, officer, and volunteer for more than two dozen Northwest organizations, including the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce and King County United Way. In 1995, he founded the Technology Alliance, a cooperative regional effort to expand technology-based employment in Washington. Gates also has been a strong advocate for education for many years, chairing the Seattle Public School Levy Campaign in 1971 and serving as a member of the University of Washington's Board of Regents since 1997.

Gates and his late wife, Mary Maxwell Gates, raised three children: Kristianne, Bill, and Libby. Now married to Mimi Gardner Gates, Gates continues his lifelong commitment to many civic programs, cultural organizations, and business initiatives.

Pierre Omidyar

Founding Partner, Omidyar Network
Founder and Chairman, eBay Inc.

Pierre Omidyar is the founder of eBay, which today enables more than 85 million buyers and sellers worldwide to connect and prosper. Starting from the premise that people are basically good, Pierre created a platform that gave people equal access to information, opportunity, and tools to pursue their goals.

In 2004, Pierre and his wife Pam founded Omidyar Network to invest in nonprofit and for-profit efforts that enable people around the world to improve their lives and make powerful contributions to their communities. Omidyar Network has funded organizations in areas such as microfinance, social media, and government transparency. As an extension of Omidyar Network's work in microfinance, Pierre and Pam gave $100 million to Tufts University to create the Omidyar-Tufts Microfinance Fund, which aims to accelerate the growth of the microfinance industry.

In 2009 Pierre was one of 28 people appointed by President Obama to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. As a commissioner, Pierre is part of a team that is responsible for recommending candidates to the President for selection as White House Fellows. Today, Pierre also serves as a trustee of Tufts University, Punahou School, and Santa Fe Institute, and as chairman of eBay.

Thomas J. Tierney

Chairman and Co-founder, Bridgespan Group

Tom Tierney is a recognized leader in serving the nonprofit sector. In 1999 he co-founded the Bridgespan Group, an independent, nonprofit organization designed to provide general management consulting services to foundations and other nonprofits. During 2000, he stepped down as Bain & Company's chief executive to concentrate on Bridgespan-related activities. More recently, he led the development of Bridgestar, a nonprofit Bridgespan initiative dedicated to enhancing and increasing leadership talent for the nonprofit sector.

Tom frequently speaks and writes on a variety of topics related to nonprofit leadership. He lectures at Harvard Business School and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and has contributed to numerous case studies and publications, including The Harvard Business Review and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Most recently, he contributed chapters to the Leader to Leader Institute's Leader of the Future and Indiana University Press's Taking Philanthropy Seriously. He has been profiled in various publications, including Learning From The CEO and Finishing Well. He also co-authored a popular book about organization and strategy titled Aligning the Stars, which was published in April 2002 by Harvard Business School Press.

Tom joined Bain & Company in 1980 following graduation from Harvard Business School, where he received his MBA with distinction. He was promoted to partner after three years and from 1987 to 1992 served as the managing director of Bain's San Francisco office. In 1992, he became Bain's chief executive. During the 1990s, under his leadership, Bain & Company grew its revenues six-fold, while significantly expanding its international operations.

A native of California, he received his BA in Economics with highest distinction from the University of California at Davis, where he was honored as that year's most outstanding graduate. He served as a field engineer for Bechtel International in North Africa before entering business school.

Tom is a director of eBay, Incorporated and also serves on a number of nonprofit boards and advisory groups, including National Board of The Nature Conservancy, The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, the Hoover Institution, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and chairs the Harvard Business School Initiative on Social Enterprise. He is a past director of many other nonprofit organizations, including United Way of the Bay Area, United Way of Massachusetts Bay, the Committee for Economic Development, Catholic Charities, WGBH, and The National Academies.