In 1999, John Wood, then 35 and Microsoft's No. 2 in China, journeyed to Nepal with some 3,000 books in tow—not to read on vacation but to give to a school that could not afford any. The project was a joint venture between Wood and Dinesh Prasad Shrestha, a rural-aid worker in Kathmandu whom the IT executive had met earlier. It planted an idea. "We should get serious about this," Shrestha told Wood. "We should be more organized and do this properly."
Read more in Time Asia's article Asian Heroes.
John Woods: my hero
