Bill Liao
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| Bill Liao | |
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| File:Bliao.jpg Bill Liao |
Bill Liao (born William Fu Wei Liao, 1967) is an Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist who has participated in seven IPOs. He is also CEO of Finaxis AG, a privately held company in the financial services industry.
Liao is a social networking pioneer,[1] author,[2] speaker,[3] and philanthropist.[4] Among his philanthropic endeavors is his participation as an investor and volunteer in The Hunger Project in Uganda, New York and Mexico.[5]
Liao is presently focused on reforesting the Earth by causing 2 trillion trees to be planted by 2020 as part of the WeForest Movement [6] which he founded.
Liao has also been appointed as a special diplomatic envoy for St Kitts and Nevis for sustainable development and the environment. Liao has contributed to the St Kitts and Nevis recovery fund for the sugar cane industry there.[7]
Liao is also a regular attendee at the TED conferences [8] and also the World Economic Forum New Champions conference.[9]
Liao was also the Director of Operations (DOO) of telecommunications company Davnet, which achieved the fastest capital value growth in the history of the Australian Stock exchange [10] and which aggregated Internet access in the riser space [11] of office buildings. Davnet was acquired by Japanese telecommunications carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) in 1996. Liao left Davnet after the acquisition, turning his attention to other IT endeavors.
Liao was the first external investor in XING.com, then called openBC.com, which was founded by Lars Hinrichs in Germany in 2003. Later, Liao became a supervisory board member and was given the title co-Founder by Lars Hinrichs in recognition of Liao's contribution.[12]
In 2007, Liao founded neo.org, a philanthropic venture and social networking site where people could make a personal commitment for the future of the earth. Neo then founded a subsidiary, WeForest.org [13] an organisation promoting reforestation as a way to combat global warming, poverty and water shortages. Neo.org closed in 2010 WeForest.org continues, with a stated goal of planting two trillion trees by 2020 and is run from Belgium by its current CEO Marie-Noelle Keijzer. Liao is still involved with WeForest and spoke at TED Long Beach 2011 about it.
Liao was an official part of the delegation of St Kitts and Nevis to the COP15 UN climate change summit in Copenhagen where he also promoted the science and concepts behind WeForest.org [14]
In 2011, Liao joined SOSventures as their European Venture Partner [1] specialising in Internet and social media. He has invested in Mark Little's Storyful www.storyful.com venture, and Silicon Republic www.siliconrepublic.com
Bill Liao and James Whelton founded 'CoderDojo' www.coderdojo.com a not-for-profit organisation that teaches kids how to code. It aims to teach kids creative problem-solving skills and practical creative skills and was launched in Ireland in early 2011. Alongside teaching kids, they also hope to provide an outlet for kids who know how to code to meet other kids with similar interests and work on projects in an environment with their peers around them, similar to how a co-working space works but less formal.
CoderDojo was first started in Whelton’s school in early 2011 when Whelton received some publicity after hacking the iPod Nano and some younger students expressed an interest in learning how to code. He set up a computer club in his school where he started teaching basic HTML and CSS. Later that year, he met Liao, who was interested in growing the project into something bigger than just an after-school computer club. In June 2011, the first CoderDojo was launched in the National Software Centre in Cork, Ireland, where CoderDojo saw extreme success.[clarification needed] The Cork Dojo saw people travelling from Dublin, Ireland frequently to attend sessions. Owing to this popularity, a Dublin Dojo was launched soon after in Google’s Montevetro building. The increasing success lead to two more Dojos being set up in Limerick and Kerry. The most recent Dojo was in Dublin 15, Dublin, Ireland and attendance reached 40 young people, since it was its first week. It is planned to expand for the following weeks up to roughly 50 young people, the maximum the venue can support. It was held at the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown.
Bill Liao is married with three children and divides his time between Switzerland and Germany.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.gfbn.com/speakers/256-bill-liao
- ^ http://www.stonesoupway.com
- ^ http://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/6790
- ^ http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=262994
- ^ http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=18213948%40N00&q=hunger+project&m=text
- ^ http://www.weforest.org
- ^ http://www.flickr.com/photos/liao/3683589173/
- ^ http://www.giussani.com/biography/tedglobal2005.html
- ^ http://google.com/search?q=cache:vXPVs7hwVlUJ:www.weforum.org/documents/amnc08/AbridgedParticipantsList.pdf+bill+Liao+co-founder&cd=33&hl=en&ct=clnk
- ^ http://www.theage.com.au/business/dare-to-ask-the-stupid-question-and-try-for-a-10000-return-20090828-f2kt.html
- ^ http://www.ferret.com.au/n/Davnet-gains-further-commercial-access-in-US-n710515
- ^ http://corporate.xing.com/press-release/741/XING-AG-reports-change-in-supervisory-board/ XING-AG-reports-change-in-supervisory-board
- ^ http://www.weforest.org/links.php
- ^ http://climate-change.tv/component/content/article/47-inside-climate-change-solutions-interviews/321-bill-liao-december-2009
