non profit organization industry education founded 2000 headquarters san francisco california united states key people john wood founder and executive chairman erin ganju co founder and chief executive officer dinesh shrestha co founder and director of field operations website www.roomtoread.org room to read is a non profit organization for improving literacy and gender equality in education in the developing world . headquartered in san francisco california and founded on the belief that world change starts with educated children the organization focuses on working in collaboration with local communities partner organizations and governments . room to read develops literacy skills and the habit of reading among primary school children and supports girls in completing secondary school with the relevant life skills to succeed in school and beyond . 1 room to read is serving communities in ten countries in asia and africa south africa zambia tanzania sri lanka india nepal bangladesh laos cambodia and vietnam . 2 contents 1 history 2 chapter network 3 results 4 awards and recognition 5 references 6 external links history edit john wood founder and board co chair launched room to read in 1999 after a trek through nepal where he visited several local schools . he was amazed by the warmth and enthusiasm of the students and teachers but saddened by the shocking lack of resources . driven to help john quit his senior executive position with microsoft and built a global team to work with rural villages to build sustainable solutions to their education challenges . 1 not in citation given beginning in nepal john and his nepali co founder dinesh shrestha started by working with rural communities to build schools school room and establish libraries reading room . john and dinesh quickly recognized the need to expand the scope of work beyond libraries and wanted to address the fact that many girls in the developing world are overlooked in the educational system due to cultural bias . to that end in 2000 room to read began the girls education program which targets young girls and provides a long term commitment to their education . in 2001 co founder and ceo erin keown ganju spearheaded room to read s expansion into vietnam . 3 since then room to read s operations have expanded to include bangladesh cambodia india laos south africa sri lanka and zambia . in 2010 room to read celebrated its year of tens marking its ten year anniversary with the opening of its 10 000th library in nepal along with the construction of its 1 000th school and support of its 10 000th girl through the girls education program . 4 not in citation given chapter network edit room to read has all volunteer fundraising chapters in 5 united states aspen valley co ; atlanta ga ; austin tx ; boston ma ; central nj ; charlotte nc ; chicago il ; cincinnati oh ; columbus oh ; dallas tx ; denver boulder co ; fort lauderdale fl ; greenwich ct ; houston tx ; los angeles ca ; manchester nh ; minneapolis st. paul mn ; nashville tn ; new york ny ; portland or ; salt lake city wasatch ut ; san diego ca ; san francisco ca ; seattle wa ; st. louis mo ; washington dc ; and westchester ny . canada calgary ab ; edmonton ab ; toronto on ; montreal qc ; and vancouver bc . asia hong kong china ; seoul south korea ; tokyo japan ; mumbai india ; singapore . middle east united arab emirates australasia adelaide auckland brisbane canberra melbourne perth sydney . europe edinburgh scotland ; london england ; brussels belgium ; paris france ; munich germany ; rhein main germany ; amsterdam the netherlands ; zurich switzerland . results edit since its inception in 2000 room to read has impacted the lives of over 6 million children in the developing world by 6 constructing 1 450 schools ; establishing 12 522 libraries ; publishing 591 new local language children s titles ; distributing over 10 4 million children s books ; funding 13 662 long term girls scholarships . awards and recognition edit library of congress literacy award 2014 david m. rubenstein prize 7 unesco confucius prize for literacy 2011 8 fast company monitor group social capitalist award four time winner ; charity navigator four star rating seven time winner ; 9 skoll awards for social entrepreneurship 2004 2006 and 2010 ; attended clinton global initiative academy for educational development aed one of six 2007 breakthrough ideas in education ; reader s digest s best of america 2008 . 10 named one of ten innovative ngos in education by the american university school of international service 11 references edit a b about us . official website . room to read . our programs . official website . room to read . wood john 2006 . leaving microsoft to change the world . new york harper collins . pp. 119 125 . isbn 9780061121074 . scher eddie 12 november 2010 . financial times features room to read and year of tens . skoll foundation . archived from the original on 19 november 2010 . chapter network . official website . room to read . results as of october 2011 . room to read posts its result numbers quarterly . library of congress literacy award winners announced . news from the library of congress . 30 august 2014 . unesco international literacy prizewinners 2011 . unesco . financials . room to read . retrieved 3 march 2013 . awards & recognition . official website . room to read . archived from the original on 16 march 2009 . ten innovative ngos in education . international relations online . american university school of international service . 12 september 2014 . external links edit room to read official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title room to read & oldid 743797104 categories educational charities based in the united statescharities based in californiainternational educational charitiesdevelopment charities based in the united statesorganizations established in 20002000 establishments in the united statesorganizations promoting literacyhidden categories all articles with failed verificationarticles with failed verification from july 2016 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschespa ol occitan edit links this page was last modified on 11 october 2016 at 09 23 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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