The Learning Access Institute has a small full-time staff, led by Willem Scholten, it’s Executive Director. Many of its projects rely on part-time expertise in many cases obtained through strong collaboration with students and faculty of the University of Washington.
Willem Scholten
Executive Director
wscholten AT learningaccess.org
Willem Scholten brings with him more than 13 years of experience in developing technology solutions with a “social conscience” in the academic and public interest environment. He is one of the country’s foremost experts in public access computing. Over the past seven years, Willem has been instrumental in the conception, development and implementation of one of the country’s leading initiatives attempting to close the digital divide by partnering with public libraries. First, as a researcher at Seattle Public Library and a key partner with Microsoft in the development of the Libraries Online pilot program and later, as the key founding member and President of the Technology Resource Institute, he worked on taking the Libraries Online project to the next stage, culminating in the formation of the Gates Library Foundation.
As Executive Director of the Technology Resource Institute, Willem was instrumental in developing, in partnership with the Gates Library Foundation, the strategic goals and implementation strategies of the US Library program, a $200 million grant program. This program attempts to bring public access computing and access to the Internet to under-served areas in the US, by partnering with public libraries in reaching its target audience. Willem successfully led the implementation effort in 8 states and approximately 1,500 library buildings, introducing over 15,000 PC’ into local libraries.
In the Fall of 1998, the Gates Library Foundation and the Technology Resource Institute merged to form the Gates Learning Foundation and Willem became Executive Director of the Gates Center for Technology Access. In this role, he continued leading the library initiative’s implementation which was completed in the Fall of 2003. After this successful merger and the forming of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the Fall of 1999, Willem decided that he wanted to return to an environment that would allow him to have a more direct involvement in technology development and its application in resource poor settings. As such, Willem together with a number of colleagues returned to working on issues of the ever growing gap between those who can and those who can not fully participate in the emerging information society and therefore run the risk of being “information disenfranchised” and “learning deprived.” In particularly he has focused his efforts on solutions for small and often under funded public and school libraries.
In the past few years, he has increasingly focused on the lack of STEM based education within the K-12 environment and in particularly how this effects girls futures. Because of this, he is involved in a number of innovative programs which hope to increase the exposure to and enthusiasm for STEM programs.