Our Donors

In addition to our Board of Trustees and Vision Circle, the X PRIZE Foundation has many supporters who have made significant contributions to furthering our Mission. To find out how you can help support the X PRIZE Foundation click here Special thanks go out to the following donors for their support:

Naveen Jain is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and a technology pioneer. He is a founder and CEO of Intelius, a company that empowers more than 15 million consumers with information to make intelligent decisions about personal safety and security. Prior to Intelius, Jain founded InfoSpace, a successful dotcom company and innovative developer of mobile software and application services. Jain took the company public in 1998 on the NASDAQ and served as CEO until December 2002. Before starting InfoSpace, Jain was a senior executive at Microsoft Corporation.

Naveen Jain is a philanthropist, entrepreneur and a technology pioneer. He is a founder and CEO of Intelius, a company that empowers more than 15 million consumers with information to make intelligent decisions about personal safety and security. Prior to Intelius, Jain founded InfoSpace, a successful dotcom company and innovative developer of mobile software and application services. Jain took the company public in 1998 on the NASDAQ and served as CEO until December 2002. Before starting InfoSpace, Jain was a senior executive at Microsoft Corporation.

Naveen Jain is Co-Chairman of Education and Global Development at the X PRIZE Foundation where he is focused on finding entrepreneurial solutions to address the global challenges in education, poverty, agriculture, health, and clean water. Naveen is currently focused on finding ways to use advances in science to solve problems that, on the surface, look like infrastructure problems. He is exploring a challenge to develop “Digital Doctor,” an AI-based expert system that aims to improve access to primary care physicians around the world. He is determined to find ways to use neuro-plasticity to create better learners and develop neuroscience-based multi-sensory video games that are effective and additive for teaching students skills like math, science and history.

Naveen Jain is a trustee of the board of Singularity University, an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to educate and inspire leaders to address humanity’s grand challenges through innovative technologies and also a member of Pacific Council on International Policy.

Naveen Jain has been awarded many honors for his entrepreneurial successes and leadership skills including “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year”, “Albert Einstein Technology Medal” for pioneers in technology, “Top 20 Entrepreneurs” by Red Herring, “Six People Who Will Change the Internet” by Information Week. His success with Intelius has earned such accolades as “Best New Company” by the American Business Awards, Puget Sound Business Journal’s “One of Washington’s Top Three Best Workplaces”, “Rising Star” in Deloitte & Touche’s Technology Fast 500 Program, “America’s Top 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies” by Inc. Magazine and has been listed amongst the top 15 Corporate Philanthropists in the community. Most recently, Red Herring presented him with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his continued leadership in the technology industry and his support of other entrepreneurs.

Naveen Jain and his family are actively engaged in many philanthropic activities and have generously contributed to an assortment of organizations dedicated to innovation, entrepreneurship, and education. Many organizations have benefitted from their charitable activities including; The X PRIZE Foundation, The The Intrepid Museum, United Way of King County, Seattle Children’s Hospital, HopeLink, Bellevue LifeSpring, Treehouse for Kids, Boys and Girls Club, America India Foundation, Vedic Cultural Center, Seattle Art Museum, Children Rights & You and the University of Washington.

"The X PRIZE Foundation is a unique group of thought leaders who personally get involved and contribute to solving the largest challenges in the world. I find that working alongside these various experts, and funding X PRIZEs inspires creative innovation and rewards these bigger bets of exponential breakthroughs that are stifled in some vertical industries today. Just imagine that anyone has a chance to take their idea and prove their concept in an X PRIZE and change the world as we know it. This is entrepreneurship open to all scientists, college kids, graduates, PhD’s who have amazing ideas and need funding to realize these dreams." - Naveen Jain

Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures. Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.

Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures. Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.

Ram Shriram started Sherpalo in January, 2000, with the goal of applying his wealth
of operating and company building experience to promising early stage ventures.

Immediately prior to founding Sherpalo, Ram served as an officer of Amazon.com working for Jeff Bezos, founder & CEO. Ram came to Amazon.com in August, 1998, when Amazon acquired Junglee, an online comparison shopping firm of which Ram was president. While at Amazon, Ram helped grow the customer base during its early high growth phase in 1998/1999. Before Junglee and Amazon, Ram was a member of the Netscape executive team, joining them in 1994, before they shipped products or posted revenue. He drove the many partnerships and channels that Netscape employed to get massive distribution for its browser and server products during those now legendary early days of the Internet.

Ram is a founding board member of Google Inc. and 247customer.com. Ram also serves on the boards of Next Jump, Zazzle.com, and StumbleUpon.com. Ram is on the board of trustees of Stanford University.

"The X PRIZE Foundation is accelerating the pace of innovation across sectors ranging from Space exploration to alternative fuels and fostering a clean environment through its various X PRIZE CHALLENGE grants that have energized smart creative teams to come up with break thru solutions that have the potential to positively impact the lives of billions of people." - Ram Shriram

Wendy Schmidt is President of The Schmidt Family Foundation that works to advance the development of clean energy and support the wiser use of natural resources. She is founder of the Foundation’s 11th Hour Project and of Climate Central. Her other work, at ReMain Nantucket, focuses on generating a model for smart community downtown development on the island.

With her husband, Eric, Wendy created the Schmidt Ocean Institute in 2009 to provide future opportunities aboard research vessels for urgent ocean studies. She serves on the boards of GRIST, The Nantucket Dreamland Foundation, The Natural Resources Defense Council, The California Academy of Sciences, and The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute.

Wendy earned an M.A. in Journalism from The University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. magna cum laude from Smith College.

"I am sponsoring the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE to provide a public incentive for research and development into breakthrough technologies that can significantly improve our response to future oil spills in our precious ocean water resources. The X PRIZE Foundation exists to spur innovation in a unique way, bringing together scientists, technologists and inventors with leaders in industry and government to help introduce problem solving technologies to the marketplace with mechanisms for rapid deployment. Anyone who wants to change the world by solving a problem should get to know the X PRIZE Foundation." - Wendy Schmidt

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