My parents didn't believe in luck. They believed in hard work and in preparing me to take advantage of opportunity. Like many parents, they taught me to be generous but never to depend on the generosity of others.

I worked for Microsoft until 1996, till I had a different angle to view life. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and control my own destiny.

My own philanthropic efforts have always included an educational element, whether it's expanding opportunities to educate a promising mind or extending the brain's ability to learn.

I believe that incentivized prizing is the best solution to help unlock the answers to the some of the profound problems that plague our planet.

The U.S. has spent billions of dollars on educating and supporting teachers or developing curricula but no resources are applied to 'improving the brain' that a student brings to the classroom.

Once humans traded their hunter-gatherer existences for more settled communities, we began a quest to make our lives better and more comfortable, but we've also been sucking precious finite resources from our environment ever since.

Each one of us has the power to be the change we want to see in the world, making the world a better place.