Leaving Microsoft to change the World by John Wood

It is remarkable...the kind of passion one man can have, to get up in the morning, every single day and work towards building schools and libraries across the world. 

John Wood decided to leave Microsoft to start Room to Read- a non profit organisation that is dedicated to building libraries and in Nepal, India, Cambodia and Vietnam and many more. A vacation in Nepal, lead to a chance meeting with a local headmaster and a dilapidated school. The library was a sham. It made John ask the question which he answered through his work --Why should somebody be denied the right to read because of the country one is born into?

Room to Read was setup with passionate team members and continues  to operate successfully in four countries. At last count, the organisation has setup 5600 libraries and affected over 2 million children. 

This book was published much later and details the setup of the organisation. For readers interested in social work and hardened souls who have forgotten that there is another side to the glam world, its an eye opener. Everything from the kind of funding required and the way fund raisers should be held is present in the book. The dilemma of leaving a cushy job to enter into a social setup with almost zero funding, fundraisers gone awry and so many illiterate children (approx. 100 million children as per UN statistics)--the book has its moments of dilemma. At times you shed tears at the miracles this organisation has accomplished and at times you wonder about the probability of failure.

The presence of Microsoft in the title and the writer's life has had considerable impact on the book and the writer. Although the author gives Microsoft's hectic and capitalist schedules the 'credit' for his leaving the company, he makes up for it,midway, by praising bad boy 'Ballmer'and his methodical ways.

The book should be made compulsory in schools and colleges alike. Not only does it awaken the ignorant reader, it inspires the human mind to think on a global scale where education is a scarcity and indifference is in abundance.