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Stanford University to Promote Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Developing Nations
A Silicon Valley venture capitalist has donated $100 million to Stanford University's Graduate School of Business to establish a new institute to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries and eventually alleviate poverty.
Robert King, along with his wife, Dorothy, also gave a second gift to the entire university, $50 million in matching funds to encourage more donations to Stanford. The couple's gift is the second-largest publicly disclosed single donation to the school, behind a $400 million donation in 2001 by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
It is also likely to become the largest single gift to the business school. Nike founder Phil Knight donated $105 million in 2006, but it is highly likely, once matching funds are raised, that the Kings' gift will be larger.
"The institute will be about sponsoring and creating entrepreneurial activity in developing economies," said Robert King, 76, who founded Peninsula Capital in Menlo Park. "Stanford is in an absolutely leading position to do that."
The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies will be devoted to research, education and on-the-ground support to help entrepreneurs innovate and grow their businesses. Students and faculty will travel abroad to help businesses overcome obstacles to growth. The institute also will provide formal courses for entrepreneurs and nonprofit employees overseas.
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The Kings say the inspiration for their philanthropy grew from hosting foreign students while they attended Stanford, a more than four-decade experience that underscored the importance of the link between education and entrepreneurship. It also led to a successful investment by Robert King, who provided seed money for China's giant search engine, Baidu, after he met the company's co-founders, Eric Xu and Robin Li, through one of the couple's home-stay students more than a decade ago.
"If anyone knows the value of encouraging entrepreneurship in the developing world, it's Bob King," Li said in an email statement. "Bob took a big chance on Baidu in our earliest days, investing in a Chinese search engine at a time when China's Internet was still in its infancy. I'm sure that this generous endowment will help create some great business leaders in the developing world."
The institute will build on work Stanford students and faculty already are engaged in through a collaboration of the business school and the university's Hasso Plattner Institute of Design in which products and business models are created for the developing world.
One venture to emerge from this work is d.light, a company creating products for people without access to reliable electricity. The institute will dispatch students and faculty members to work with overseas businesses and NGOs, or nongovernment organizations, identified as having great promise by other organizations.
The donation will enable the university to greatly expand this work and add a research element to it, said Hau Lee, a supply chain expert and business school professor who will head the institute. The organization also will provide support for doctorate students across the campus, from humanities to engineering, working on projects to "stimulate entrepreneurship" overseas, he said.
"If their research is focused on Guatemala, we will send them there," Lee said.
The university is beginning the process to hire three tenure-track professors to fill research positions in the institute. They will join four current Stanford professors, Saloner said.
The Kings, who are active philanthropists, also founded the Thrive Foundation for Youth, which supports research on youth development and organizations that work with young people.
"Bob and Dottie have had this heart for fighting poverty for a long time," said Russ Hall, co-founder of Legacy Venture, a Palo Alto-based organization that allows individuals and foundations to invest in funds created by venture capitalists for philanthropy. "They have also been among the smartest philanthropists I've seen, navigating between what's doable and what science and research say. They are no slouches."
In donating to Stanford, the Kings are looking for returns beyond enriching founders and investors, the couple said.
"I would say, from my vantage point, the results will be changed lives -- those billion people living on $1.25 a day, that their circumstances will be dramatically improved. Not 10 or 100 people; we are talking about millions of people," Robert King said.
The institute's aim is to change lives at Stanford, as well, Dorothy King said.
"We've lived in a pretty privileged society," she said. "I would hope that any student coming to Stanford would say, 'I am going to the university that wants to help the poor people of the world.' "
http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_19262908
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